ZAHA HADID’S STONE TOWERS

ARTICULATE

BABOON

IS ON THE

LOOSE!

2010 comes to an end.. should we say “Finally!” Or should we ponder on the successes and failures of our year’s end. The Crys-tal issue celebrates one year since Greens Magazine was initi-ated, and in great success a continuing emblem in our social his-tory. Thanks to the donated contributions, and corporate social responsibilities offered by important supporting structures in our Cairene society, we continue to be one of the most success-ful and unique publications in the printed media industry.

The Crystal Issue marks a start and an end. A start for the new trials we are yet to discover in 2011, and an end to a very well spent annum of ideas, and creative formulations that offer the best stories, the most exclusive interviews, and the greatest stars in Egypt’s social history.

Marking a presence of community, a presence of social awareness to great ideas and even more extraordinary initiators who operate out of passion, good will, and even greater achievement.

With the Crystal Issue we have truly applied our mandate: If It’s Greens, It’s Fresh.

Have a great read!

Ghada El Bedeawi

Letter from G ContentROOTS

SAYEDA NAFISA

PARENTINGPRESENTATION SKILLS

GREENLIGHTMENTPRECIOUS STONES

ARCHITECTURECAIRO’S STONE TOWERS

INTERIOR DESIGNTRANSPARENCY

GREEN TEA WITHDR. IBRAHIM KARIM

ZOOLOGYPEARLING MOLLUSKS

DOT APPLESIMON RAMSDEN

ACTION VEHICLESSUPER SPORTS CARS

UNWINDCITY OF THE DEAD

FILM REVIEWHARRY POTTER

ARTS AND CULTUREPATRIZIO TRAVAGLI

ARTICULATE BABOON

HANY RASHED

THE BARJEEL COLLECTION

TRAVELSIWA

بالعربي البسيطدرر العلم بشوارع مصر اجلديدة

بدايات املصريني

شفافية الهوية

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EDITORIALFounder and CEOGhada El Bedeawi

Acting Editor-in-ChiefAida Eltorie

Designed by Ahmed Roshdy

PhotographerJasmine Alladin

Sales Media RepresentativeAbdel Rahman OsamaMohamed Farag

Administrative AssistantReham Abdel Gawad

CTP & PrintingSahara Printing Company

Special Thanks toShereen AdelAhmed Hamed Faramawy

ContactA. 52 Mohamed Farid St, Heliopolis, Cairo, EgyptE. contact@greensmagazine.orgT. +2 (019) 99 219 55 / (010) 17 631 14

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WRITERS and CONTRIBUTORSDr. Mohamed El DalyShereen AdelMahmoud RiadMay KosbaMichael AdlyRana SalahManar El GammalVetime ShaipiAmr McGyverAhmed Hamed FaramawyErin M.DegerstedtHala El Tayeb

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At Al Sayeda Nafisa’s house which is now the place of her Mosque, great Imams and scholars of Islam used to gather and learn from her the issues of religion. Some of those scholars are al Bishr Ibn al-Harith, the pious Imam of Sunni Ahmad Ibn hanbal, Imam Shafi’i and many other distinguished Muslim scholars. When Imam Shafi’I got sick ,he went to her saying “Please Pray For me Nafisa”, in 204 Hijri the Imam died. Before burying his corps, they went by his funeral to her house where she prayed on him and said: “May Allah bestow his Mercy and blessings on Al Shafi’i’s soul, he used to improve his Wodou.”

AlSayeda Nafisa did the Hij ritual 30 times walking on her feet. She cried heavily while she is attached to Al Kaa’ba saying “Oh my dear Lord, my pleasure and happiness is achieved only through your acceptance of me, so please dear lord don’t me do anything or to let any reason would veil me from you”. Al Sayeda Nafisa lived in Egypt for at least seven years, and in one of the years a drought struck Egypt and the rain became very few.

The people of Egypt went to her asking for her du’aa so that Allah would bestow heavy rain on Egypt in order to irrigate the plants and cattle. She responded to their request and asked Allah for rain, and immediately the rain started to fall as a bless of her prayers. In Ragab of 208 Hijri. AlSayeda Nafesa, got sick and when she felt for her death approaching ,she dug her own grave in her house. She used to pray in her grave and read the Koran ,one hundred and ninety Khatmahs. On the First Friday of Ramadan while she was reading sorate Al An’aam reaching the verse

يعملون“ كانو مبا وليهم وهو ربهم عند السالم دار she said the Shahada and died. Her , ”لهم husband wanted to bury her Al Bak’ee in Saudi Arabia but the people of Egypt went to him and requested that she would be buried in the land of Egypt. He initially refused , then afterwards he accepted their and when he was asked about the reason of his acceptance ,he answered “The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him in my dream, he told me : Bury Nafisa in Egypt because the people of Egypt deserve has the right to have her with them”. She was buried in her grave in her house in Darb el Seb’aa,in a region between the city of Al Qat’aae and the city of Al Askar, the region was known after wards by the name of “Kom el Garhy”. The day of her funeral was a great memorable day where the people of Egypt rushed from every where including the far parts of Egypt in order to bury her corps and pray on her. And until this day the house of AlSayeda Nafisa which is today the place of a Mosque named after her,is the sanctuary of asceticism and knowledge , the residence of the people of piety and science Students. May Allah bestow his blessing upon the Family and descendants of Prophet Mohamed,and as the mighty Lord said in the Holly Koran : تطهيرا“ يطهركم و البيت أهل الرجس عنكم ليذهب اهلل يريد .”إمنا

SCIENTISTSGEMSTONES OF THE ARABIC NATION

First I must say that I am dedicating this article in the honor of one of the great Arabic Muslim Women scientists who unfortunately most of the young female generations know nothing about their role in building up the Arabic and Islamic nation. The scientist I am mentioning this time in my article inspired me through her Strong invisible personality affecting very much my life and career. However, in the contrast of prevailing notions of secularism which claimed that the civilization of Islam and Arabs restricted the role of women in society and civil Life. As a gemstone , women in the Islamic nation were given a great deal and prestige. Women had an important role in lighting the history and civilization of Islam and Arabs, preserving the Holly book of Koran and the Sunnah of Prophet Mohamed for the future generations. There are well known Muslim scientists such as el Imam el Shafei & Ibn Hanbal who had been schooled on the hands of women. One of the great women who affected the Life of Egyptian people and had a great role in educating Muslim scholars is AlSYEDA NAFISA who was known among scientists as the Precious Realm of Science, may Allah bestow his blessings upon her soul.

AlSyeda Nafisa, is the daughter of Imam Hassan bin Zaid Anwar Alobalij son of Imam Hassan bin Ali bin Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with them all. She is from the house of prophecy, she was born in 145 Hijri. And when her father heard of her birth, prayed for her saying:”Oh God, let her be raised well, Make her righteous, and among your associates who you Love and who Love you. Oh God, let her be the precious realm of science , having great deal among your worshipers, being tolerant and strong believer of your religion”. During her childhood, she loved worship where AlSayeda Nafisa had never left the campus and the mosque of the prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him. Her father, used to take her while she was still five year old to AL Madinah, where grew up in an atmosphere dominated by science and piety, in the middle of an environment full of scientists and worshipers. She excelled in studying the science of jurisprudence and sharia. She memorized the Holly book of Koran , the Hadith and Sunnah of Prophet Mohamed.

It was well known as a distinguished scientist and a good worshiper. She had a bashful soul where she never asked for any life needs except from Allah. AlSyeda Nafisa, used to spend her money which she gained from her Yarn work on her house and charity work. She enriched her mornings by fasting and revived her night by prayers therefore it was well known by people that her prayers where always accepted by Allah.

THE PRECIOUS REALM OF SCIENCE AL SAYEDA NAFISA

Manar El Gammal illustrates

Roots

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Teaching the basicsThe basics of preparing a speech and the fundamental elements of public speaking can be found in many books and on the internet. However, it is always a good practice to have a coach that guides your child along the way and knows how to break the skill into smaller areas that your child can practice individually and combine collectively to master public speaking. The coach can be any experienced presenter or a skilled orator.

Practice“Practice makes perfect” this proverb summarizes it all. The more your child practices, the better their speaking skills will be. Some view great orators as outliers with special innate talents or genetic code that allowed them to stand out of the crowd. Psychologist Anders Ericsson argues that innate talent has very little to do with great achievers and performers. What makes the towering difference between excellent performers and normal ones is the boundless hours of practice usually paired with immediate coaching feedback that allows them to fine tune their performance and achieve excellence in what they do. One crystal clear example is Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister and one of the great orators of all time.

When Martin Luther king delivered his speech “I have a dream..” in 1963, he changed the course of history for his nation. He spoke for 17 minutes words that lasted for years and by speaking the way he did, he inspired, preached, liberated and transformed not only his people but all humankind.

Public speaking has been skillfully employed throughout history to motivate crowds, mobilize masses, inspire nations and defy others. It has been used to ignite wars and also to promote peace. It is the skill most known to have connected legendary leaders with their peoples allowing them to occupy the front seats in the hearts of their nations and the chronicles of history.

This indispensible life skill has always been viewed as a special gift bestowed only on a selected few and that’s far from being true. Public speaking, like any other skill, can be acquired and mastered boosting one’s self-confidence and creating a healthy self-esteem.

What better time to start learning such an essential skill than childhood? Learning to comfortably address the public will thrust your child’s self-confidence and prepare your child for real-world applications. The more comfortable your child is with public speaking the more outgoing they tend to be and the better they are in handling conflicts, facing challenges and resisting negative peer pressure.

Introducing public speaking to your children entails 3 main steps; teaching them the basics about how to prepare their speech and deliver it, supporting them in taking massive actions to find opportunities to present and practice the skill, and finally coaching them to enhance their competencies and raise their self-esteem, helping them to avoid all the negative thoughts and emotions.

By Mohamed El Daly

Parenting

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CoachingBeing under the spot light can trigger all sorts of anxieties and negative feelings. Your child’s hands might sweat and shake like a leaf. They’ll experience a dry mouth, a shiv-ering voice and their stomach will be invaded by butterflies. This is called stage fright and it would leave your child thinking of getting off the stage as quickly as possible instead of thinking how to get their message across to their audience in an interesting and a compelling way.

In order to overcome these anxieties, re-shape your child’s belief system by changing the way they perceive public speaking. Assure them that their audience is always on their side and wants them to succeed. Instill in them that public speaking is an oppor-tunity to share what they know with others and is not about reading information to the audience. Help them to see it as a means to connect with people instead of being under the spot and judged by the attendants. Let them focus on doing their best in planning, preparation, practice and delivery and not to worry about anything out of their circle of influence. Assist them to reveal the learning potential in each opportu-nity rather than the challenges.

When they start to think in such a way, public speaking will be a pleasure, a fun thing to do and an exciting challenge that they’re looking forward to.To teach your child about public speaking is to take your child on a journey from their comfort zone to their learning zone. The zone where they grow and flourish, learn something new every time they stand up to speak and learn more about the human potential. It will open doors for more life skills and marvelous achievements in your child’s amazing life to come.

Some recommended speeches to check out are:Martin Luther King’s speech “ I have a dream..”, 1963John F. Kennedy’s speech “We choose to go to the moon..”, 1962Winston Churchill’s speech “We shall fight on the beaches..”, 1940Anwar Al-Sadaat’s speech to the Knesset, 1977Barak Obama’s inaugural speech, 2009Steve Job’s Stanford commencement speech, 2005Queen Rania’s speech at Yale University, 2009

Churchill stuttered frequently but this didn’t hold him back from being a great orator. His seemingly effortless delivery of speeches was the result of his commitment to prac-tice and rehearsal of his talks until they seemed to flow spontaneously.

Speaking opportunities are all around your child. They can participate in speech con-tests in their schools, take part in the school broadcasting crew and deliver lots of class presentations.

More notable is empowering them to communicate their needs, articulate their ideas and speak up for themselves during their daily activities. For example, if they are go-ing for a medical checkup you might encourage them to think of questions they want to ask the doctor. At the clinic, ask them to pose their questions and let the discus-sion flow between them and the doctor. Even when the doctor addresses you instead (which they’ll probably do if they don’t think they should talk to little ones), look at your child giving them the power to lead the discussion. Ask them if they want to clarify something or have any further inquiries.

Another way to encourage them to speak is to ask them to teach you something they learned today at school over dinner. Take these learning moments and stress the good things they did while speaking. Remember what gets appreciated, gets repeated. Try to limit your criticism (points of improvement) to one single point at a time. This will help them focus on it instead of being overwhelmed with many things to work on and feeling frustrated.

Watch together great speeches and let them evaluate the speech. Ask them what they liked the most about it, what they think the presenter did really well and how they could have changed anything to make it better.

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Written by: Erin M.DegerstedtEdited by Greens

When paying a visit to the country, you are introduced to the “Jewels of an-cient history.” An analogy placed on the preciousness of the historic sites, is also a value granted to the geological treasures of the country.

Precious and semi-precious stones of Egyptian landmarks were primarily rec-ognized and used in ancient Egypt for amulets; a type of protective device worn around the body, or placed next to other objects to protect against evil. It has existed across cultures and religions, from ancient Egypt to Rome, and from Christianity to Judaism and Islam. In the latter they usually carried texts, images of the saints and patrons, and designs all pertaining to their cultural heritage. They were usually found in the form of beads, jewelry, and even sacred scarabs (the image of a dung beetle), which was also known as Scarabeus Sacer due to their habits of feeding on feces. It was used by the ancient Egyptians for many purposes such as recording historical events or inscribing prayers to be placed on mummies for protection against evil, and other personal ornaments. Precious and Semi-precious stones were also used as inlay for the decoration of boxes, coffins, furniture and other objects. The stones that were referred to in ancient Egyptian text were some of the fol-lowing: agates, amethyst, beryl, calcite, carnelian chalcedony, coral feldspar, granite, hematite, jade, jasper, lapis lazuli, malachite, olivine, onyx, pearl, peridot, sard, sardonyz and turquoise. They also used resins such as amber, a type of gem stone although it isn›t a stone at all. Many of the stones were used as early as the Predynastic times, and others were not used till much later. With a few exceptions all of which the stones were native to Egypt.

One of the widely used minerals in ancient Egypt is Chalcedony also know as quartz. Chalcedony is the bases for many of the precious and semi-precious

stones used by the Egyptians. Agates (reddish brown white banded quartz) occurs plentifully in Egypt, chiefly in the form of

pebbles, but it has been found also in small quantity associated with jasper (strong red fined grained

quartz) these were mainly found at the head of Wadi Abu Gerida in the Eastern Desert. This stone were used for beads, amulets, and other small objects but was limited to jew-

elry.

Another type of quartz that was used readily was Amethyst; usually a purple color, it was used largely in an-

cient Egypt in the form of beads, chiefly for necklaces. Most of the amethyst

found in Egypt during the Old Kingdom was from the north-west of Abu Simbel. In the Middle Kingdom, the main source was found at Wadi el Hudi, about twenty miles southeast of Aswan.

Another very beautiful stone was Beryl, which can be found in an array of colors but only found in green in Egypt. The more

common name for this is the Emerald. This was used as a gemstone and bead, and they naturally form in the Sikait-Zubara region on the hills of the Red Sea. Although there has been some discrepancy on when exactly the Emerald was used for in Egypt, but it is known that it was chiefly used during the Ptolemaic times.

Another type used by ancient Egyptians was a group on minerals called Garnet. The Garnet was used by the ancient Egyptians of a dark red with reddish-brown translucent stone that occurs plentifully in the country. Mainly in Aswan, and towards the Eastern Desert, it is also located in Kharga Oasis and the Sinai regions. The stone however was usually found in very small sizes and were mainly used for beads and inlays. They date back as early as the predynastic times and were mainly used in the Second Intermediate period.

Turquoise was one of the most versatile stone that was used in ancient Egypt. It was primarily pigment in dye for gaze and paints and readily used for jewelry. Turquoise

was found mainly in Sinai, at Wadi Magharah and Serabit el Khadim, where the stone occurs in seams in the sandstone rock. The stone is typically a light blue but can also be a greenish-blue. Turquoise was used in Egypt as early as the Neolithic and predynastic periods.

Ancient Egyptians spent significant time excavating these precious minerals. They would take long excursions through the deserts in search for these rare finds, and until today, even though these are considered to be naturally formed

stones across thousands of years, excavations are still quite vast in contemporary Egypt since they are serving a market that seeks the types of stones found in the country›s rich lands.

Reference:Lucus,A. and Harris, J.R Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industry, Percious and Semi-Per-cious Stones Edward Arnold, London 1926

ANCIENT EGYPT’S PRECIOUS STONES

Greenlightment

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Cairo’s Stone Towers: Zaha Hadid’s Manifestation of Nature

For any object or form – whether natural or manmade – to take shape and crystal-lize, we will find that a set of patterns that govern its development is required for it to exist. If we take, for example, the primitive cube, we would immediately realize that it’s shaped by six individual squares; or that the primitive sphere, is shaped by an infinite series of circles and curves (unless it’s a facetted football, and then made of a number of polygonal surfaces). It is thus easy to assume that any physical object can be broken down into a series of surfaces in connection and in relationship to one another.

But if we step into the world of the metaphysical, we will see that this idea of pat-terning, even with intangible artifacts, still holds true. If we are to understand the word “pattern” as a theme of recurring events, characteristics, or elements, we can start to associate this phenomenon with invisible forms. In music, we hear patterns in both rhythmic expressions and melodic / harmonic intervals; in embroidery, we feel patterns embedded in the texture and fabric of the textiles; in perfumery, one whiff is combined with a set of patterning chemical formulas (I’m not sure if we can smell patterns, but what we smell is definitely a result of it).

There are also cultural patterns, which can be understood as overarching principles that guide certain groups of people (whether connected via geography, religion, vocation or even interest). Such patterns form cognitive understandings of the sur-rounding context within the human brain, and thus trickle down into various forms of expression like language, architecture, cookery, music, or even basic rudimentary behavior. Egyptians as a cultural group tend to have their own behavioral pat-terns and modes of expression that stem from within their language, exposure to climate, and historical episodes. Musicians as a cultural group tend to have their own analytical problem-solving techniques and use of emotional expression that stem from their understanding of time, harmonic proportions, and improvisation/ composition. Horror movie enthusiasts have their own crude and diabolical sense of humor due to their exposure to (god-awful, gut-wrenching) movies like dawn of the dead and hostel, for example.

By Mahmoud Riad, Architect

All images are courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architecture Firm, London, 2010

Architecture

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Architects, as a cultural group, often see the idea of patterning as a method of forming or informing an “ordering principle” that ties the kid of parts to the whole. When confronted with a project, each architect will attempt to find an organizing pattern that will dictate the reasoning behind the resultant form. On a basic geometric level, such organizing pat-terns may take the shape of a grid or module – for example, when using a regular square grid pattern, each line or curve drawn is always conceived in relationship to the uniformity of the grid, which allows the grid to become the overall ordering principle.

Renaissance architects, heavily engaged in creating their version of heaven on earth, saw hierarchy as the ordering principle. They envisioned harmony as the relationship between the larger elements and small counterparts – which in painting was manifested through the foreground and background elements in perspective, and in music through the louder and softer dynamics produced by the musical instrument. From the Renaissance onwards until the modern movement (when Le Corbusier reintroduced the idea of modulation), most of the worthy built environment were ordered around a central space – a big room, courtyard, garden, urban plaza, concert or performance hall…etc – with all the surround-ing rooms designed in relation to this central space.

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Fast forwarding to the 21st century, architects are still searching for an organizing principle that will allow them to explore their creations’ gestalt, utilizing com-plex mathematical equations and critical regionalist theories to inform the design process, taking a step further from their historical predecessors by consciously attempting to let an intangible cultural quality dictate the design process and overall form. Stone Towers, an xyz square meter commercial complex designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (under the leadership of project director Chris Lepine and project architect Tyen Masten) and developed by Rooya Group in New Cairo, is no exception to this rule. The patterns along the facades of the south tower ribbons (and found subsequently dispersed in various elements within the entire project) were designed through a critical regionalist idea of defamiliarization. The term was first coined on the turn of the twentieth century by artist Viktor Shklovsky, of the Russian Formalist group, and is an artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance the perception of the familiar. Architects from the last century onwards have used this technique with traditional forms or motifs, in an attempt to arouse the visi-tor’s awareness and consciousness over an aspect of heritage that may have been previously taken for granted.

The patterns on the so-called stone ribbons were inspired by and used to defamil-iarize the attitude towards the use of shadow on the facades of Ancient Egyptian temples. The facades of the Philae, Luxor, and Abu Simbel temples all use hiero-glyphs and drawings in order to tell stories about the history of the ruler who commissioned the complexes. They engraved and carved out their drawings from the planar stone façade, and let the created shadows bring their stories to life. Depending on the time of day and strength of shadows, the façade would dra-matically differ in character and in surface play (the façade would look more like a blank wall on an overcast day while looking heavily undulating on a sunny day). This is the element that the designers of Stone Towers chose to emulate, using the interplay of recessed, protruding, and opening surfaces; they allowed the light – or perhaps the Ancient Egyptian sun god, Ra - to play a major role in the design.

Upon my first gaze of the drawings produced by the Zaha Hadid team, I found myself connecting to it on a very cultural-heredity level. Although it looks very futuristic and alien to anything Egypt has ever attempted, it still felt right – it felt like it belonged to Cairo. The patterns on the ribbons, and perceived density in the renderings may have helped, but these are not the ordering principals of the entire project. There was something deeper at play here, a question that a mere glance at a few perspective drawings could not answer. The key is to take a step back from the built environment and to treat this as a cultural pattern / ordering principal; through such analysis, one can link the design strategy of Stone Towers to the principal of Heterophony in Arabic and Middle Eastern music, particularly in Egypt.

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Heterophony is a type of musical texture that refers to the practice of two or more musi-cians simultaneously performing slightly improvised or ornamented versions of the same melody – the embellishment of the melodies often result from the technical abilities of the performer and the sonic material qualities of the instrument. Traditionally, Arabic music does not employ the western ideas of harmonic proportions between intervals (known to musicians as harmony). If you listen to any Um Kalthoum or Abd El Haleem Hafez mu-sical piece (or anyone from what is considered to be the golden age – and by steering clear from Amr Diab and his contemporaries), you will notice that all the instruments and backup singers sing the exact same tune, devoid of any harmony or chord progressions. The conception of harmony in the Renaissance could be traced to the 16th century when equal temperament was adopted and developed into their musical instruments (meaning that all musical intervals and increments on the scale would be divided equally, as opposed to be based on pure mathematical ratios). Arabic musical instruments on the other hand are non-incremental, and thus do not rely on equal temperament – it achieves this idea of harmony through the subtle embellishes and emphasizes intrinsic inconsistencies of the aesthetics of the unequal tempered tonal spectrum.

This concept of heterophony can be found in numerous art forms within Arab culture. This idea of appreciating subtle differences between seemingly identical objects could argu-ably be traced to the lifestyle of the Arab nomad; responsible for navigating their tribes through the barren desert land, the Arab adapts to notice subtle differences in the sand dunes and climate (wind patterns and position of the sun) in order to orient him with the surrounding context. This cognitive skill is trickled down through the Arab psyche and re-veals itself once again through the attitudes of creating many artifacts (from architectural elements, to music, to pottery… etc).

If we are to imagine that the North Towers are a musical group singing one melody (for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are the male vocals), and the South Towers are a musical group singing another melody (female vocals), then we can perhaps start to see a clear association between the overall architectural gestalt in this concept of heterophony. All the buildings are almost identical in form - the North Towers differ in formal orienta-tion (they flip around) while the South Towers bow down to the site at different angles – and are aligned sequentially along the edge of the site at equal intervals, which negates the inclusion of hierarchy and allows the architecture to be experienced in serial motion. The subtle variations and formal embellishments of each unit depend on how these towers meet both the edge of the site and delta region between the towers.

Because of the irregularity of the site footprint, these towers start off to be really close together, and then grow exponentially in distance from one another. Both towers connect through the delta region via a network of landscaped surfaces and xyz square meters of retail, both forms and shapes are governed by the distance between the towers and how their ribbons flow into the delta region. In a sense, the delta region becomes the harmonic result of the subtle embellishments of each tower, just like the general mood that is cap-tured through music played in heterophony – the embellishments here become the order-ing principle.

The interesting aspect in all of this is that the association between Stone Towers and Het-erophony in Egyptian music was not made intentionally, as confirmed by the project direc-tor, Chris Lepine: “... although it was not a conscious decision within the design process, it grew and developed out of a need for an ordering principle within the architecture – bal-ancing desires for formal cohesion while offering richness and variety – allowing such as-sociations to resonate on a deeper profound level”. In searching for an ordering principal for Stone Towers, the architects immersed themselves into the local culture - visiting and experiencing the flavors, overpowering adhan calls, close (sometimes claustrophobic) social proximities of the locals, and breathing stones of Cairo. Within their research, a cultural pattern was imprinted in their design cognition and found it trickling down to the drawing boards – a process of defamiliarization occurring again and again unconsciously.

At the closing of this article, I leave you, the reader, with some food for thought. For the past century or more, many scholars of Islamic architecture and urbanism have pondered about the generating principles of the meandering episodic nature of an Islamic town – most of which have concluded that the irregularity is probably due to rebuilding the city over time and that the majestic space that we feel at awe within were conjured through pure happenstance. Now that we have established that ordering principles do not neces-sarily have to be geometric or consciously made by the designer, we can start to assess the patterns of development found in our Islamic quarters of Cairo, and hopefully start to un-leash some of our intrinsic cultural patterns as we evolve through the 21st century.

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In many hotels and buildings are present transparent stairs and elevators but rarely they are as astonishingly beautiful as the Piano House, China, where the stairs and the elevator are located within the violin.

With our adoration of transparency in winter time we forget the cold and simply chip small ice stalactites from tree branches and suck them as an ice-cream bar, while using this great icy opportunity to skate or slide. But, there are always people who know how to make fairytales true. In some parts of the World like China, Sweden, Norway, Alaska, to name just a few, during the winter periods people make ice heavens.

The semitransparent walls are bring-ing light and shimmer and festive atmosphere of the unique aurora borealis.

Many of Greens Magazine read-ers live in Egypt and surrounding countries where snow is not pres-ent, and interiors addressed are not part of their culture, but this does not mean that glass was not known or present in their interiors. On a contrary many blown glass articles are pro-duced in this part of the World.

The traditional blown glass made in Egypt is one of the top best buys among tourists. The uniqueness of each piece is priceless and the imagina-tion and creativity of glass artists is endless.

Transparency as Part of a Magical World Around Us

An obsession of human kind with transparent objects is not a novelty. In pagan religions transparent objects were used in rituals, and often they were prescribed magical quali-ties. Many crystals were used as talismans; bringing power, health, beauty, and riches. A discovery of glass, instead of diminishing, just fortified human fascination with see through objects and this gave them an opportunity to not use them only in rituals and as jewelry but also in homes and palaces. Maybe one of the most beautiful monuments of this enthrallment would be the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, France which to this day and age still represents one of the most dazzling interiors in the world. This unique interior consists of 17 crystal chandeliers whose beauty and uniqueness reflects in 17 mirrors that face 17 windows.

Until nineteenth century crystal and glass remained being symbol of wealthy but with industry development this has changed and in contemporary interiors they are present in our homes and offices.

But here the story just begins; the bedazzlement of humans with transparency has maybe just begun. In the last couple of years, companies have pre-

sented us a see through toaster, fridge, and even a washing machine. Their beauty and uniqueness goes handy when

children as us: “How does this work?” Well, at least now, we wont have to answer the question... Oooops there is a spill from juice inside my fridge and I got to clean it! Guess, not every innovation is so cool in practice,

but then nothing is perfect... except, I would really love having that toaster.

Several years ago, scientists managed to cre-ate a transparent concrete and I just love the idea, except we are not to paint it, but then I

could live with that, couldn’t you? Just imagine, daylight not only entering through your windows

but walls too.

The Transparent bricks are manufactured by Litra-con company, made of optical fiber, and mixed with the concert, the result: a light that can penetrate

from outside.Piano House, China - This building is blending of music and art and is located in An Hui Province, China. The build-ing displays various city plans and development prospects in an effort to draw interest into the recently developed area.

Piano House, China - This building is blending of music and art and is located in An Hui Province, China. The building displays various city plans and development prospects in an effort to draw interest into the recently developed area

Vetime Shaipi exploresInterior Design

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Mirroring EnergiesDr. Ibrahim Karim

Born in Cairo, Egypt on February 1st, 1942, Dr. Ibrahim Karim reflects about the power of BioGeometry on the Environment

How would you define the temperaments of science and its effect on interrelationships?

So, What is Energy: On The Analogy of the Musical Instrument

Recognized as one of the foremost contemporary pioneers in the study of scientific ener-gies, Dr. Ibrahim Karim, from Egypt, is the founder architect of the science of BioGeometry based on a new kind of Physics that he developed and called ‘The Physics of Quality’. This new physics opened the doors to measuring the quality and effect of different energies on the living systems and their environment. BioGeometry is a designing language that has the means to harmonize and balance the harmful effects of the environmental energies rang-ing from earth radiation, to electromagnetic fields and radioactive materials. Dr. Ibrahim is maybe one of the few specialists in this diverse field of true scientific magic, who is aware of and studies the interconnectivity between energy fields and the quality of their effect on the living systems and the environment..

The physics that we all study in schools today is a quantitative kind of science, it does not take in consideration the quality effect on the human being; we built a whole civilization with this concept ignoring the human subtler energies like the spiritual, mental and emo-tional levels which never happened before with great civilizations. In the age of informa-tion, we keep raising the amount of electromagnetic waves in the atmosphere ignoring their effect on living systems, not acknowledging the health problem we’re creating; we’re of course very far from trying to find a solution. In the qualitative science of BioGeometry we extend the axiom of ‘Man is the measure of all things’ to include all levels of the hu-man subtle energy. In this way and with the measurement tools and the harmful energies balancing tools that we have, all interrelationships are studied and solutions are applied.

Energy is an effect, always defined from a quantitative point of view. When you pluck a string from a musical instrument, say for example a Harp, you define the effect of the noise from the amount of times you pluck that string, and if not from the number of times, then the one time you will pull that string, you will define it from the strength of that pull. Sound carries frequencies. Now associate those frequencies to the qualities of sound you will like to hear within the range of your own senses.

In looking for the laws of your quality (not quantity), notes are quantitatively completely different from the quality. But do we consider them to be the same?

With the practice of quantities, you start to become sensitive to the notes. It is in that “feel-ing” that cooks that subjective notion to an objective reality. So what we might consider is a linear forwarding direction, do we create a psychological fusion of the dependence of qualitative analyses of energy upon quantitative values.

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On the Analogy of the Farmer

The beauty of a farmer’s life in the universe is in his natural relationship with his/her sur-rounding environment. The Farmer leaves the tension of quantities, and only seeks the quality and later on the quantity in the growth of nature. He/she enters into the divine wisdom of quality as a primary.

Now connecting the qualities of the farmer to that of a musician, everything in nature is a vibration, and most certainly a quantitative one to that, as we are all interconnected in numerical values: From 0 to Infinity.

By looking into the light, will you then realize that you are in the dark: Whether in the spiri-tual realm, or through the intellectual development of science, only through Great Art will you become harmonized. And it is due to such subjective qualities does humanity become stuck by their destructive impacts.

Outside of Egypt, we are changing the world with this sort of energy science. Due to our need to restore quality back into our lives, does the ancient Egyptian land of the “Goddess Hathor,” carry a great desire to return to nature. It took 5,000 years to develop a new sci-ence and understand the power of geometrical shapes over nature. (Which brought Dr. Karim to his first lecture with TED-x, a network of professionals dedicated to the concept of ideas worth spreading, titled “Why is the Cow Smiling?” This past May at the American University in Cairo’s Ewart Hall.)

While researching in Switzerland, the cow tells Dr. Karim that she was laughing at man-kind’s disastrous existence, she laughs because she had hope in mankind. Speaking to the audience through Dr. Karim, the cow tells them of her importance in Swiss culture: The cow is more important to a man, than his own wife. She produces milk, cheese, and carries meat; a nurturing fauna caught up in the destructions created by mankind. She says; “You destroy the environment and then claim to fix it. I am the one close to the environment, and never attempted to harm it. I am stuck next to you. My fate is to stick next to mankind, however birds can migrate, and as my weight keeps me here lagging beside you I am unable to run away, so I start to develop diseases from all the harm mankind is creating around us.”

For more information on BioGeometry, visit: www.biogeometry.com/

The Hidden Time Bomb in the Age of Information

There is no time that will be able to destroy our existence like NOW. Electricity is filling the air. Pollution does not only come in the form of volatile organic compounds, but also radiation, electromagnetic wastes, and continuous waves of information.

In this age of information, we are bringing our selves closer to knowledge, but we are also shortening life on earth.

We started to place BioGeometric emitters, that look like little shells made out of ma-terials such as wood and Plexiglas. Recognizing that there is a natural pen, writing the forms of nature in the environment, this is exactly what these objects do, and Guess What? They are built by architects. Even if you look historically, such objects existed in ancient monasteries. So we look at qualitative physics, in the form of visual language that comes to fit in the environment with its shape to balance the negative energies and redirect positive energies into the natural space.

By developing such new solutions into the ground and open air space, all forms of ar-chitectural designs will change the motion of energy in the space. So returning to the cow analogy, she looks at all these tricks and tells the audience: “This is old!” These techniques are old, have existed since the ancient Egyptian times, and we, in our mod-ern times, have not been able to tap back into the laws of nature due to our complete disconnection from our natural surroundings.

When we change a space into an architecturally ideal situation overnight, people be-come stunned at how these changes have completely enveloped the emotional mental state - how it cycled from the negative to the positive. Dr. Karim tells us about how they found a forceful change in the natural surroundings, and by changing the archi-tectural settings of a location, and I do not mean changing from one monumental building to another, but an actual evaluation from one space to another by changing only a single shape from within the volume of the space. It will surely change the envi-ronmental vibrations of the space into positive energies.

Dr. Ibrahim Karim is the foremost architect researcher and developer of energy science. Sitting on his office desk come the words: “Only those who see the invisible, can do the impossible.”

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A Pearling Mollusk

A Pearling MolluskGod has created nature with incomparable perfection and inlayed it with creatures which when observed, reveal a miraculous structure that proves the beauty of God’s effect.When we contemplate a creature like the oyster; that soft invertebrate mollusk enclosed in a calcareous shell, we wouldn’t imagine that we’re watching a laboratory for pearl production. The oyster is well known for its delicious taste, it’s what we call the True Oyster, but the waters contain much bigger oysters that produce pearls named Pearl Oysters.

God equipped this marvelous creature with a tiny heart for pumping colorless blood which gets filtered for waste by 2 small kidneys. The food gets into the oyster’s mouth through the gills that pull in water and filter it by the residing mucus substance. The most fascinating fact about this humble mollusk is that it can change its sex many times through its lifetime, which leaves a chance to a single female to fertil-ize its own egg and then produce millions of eggs in 1 year.

It never crossed my mind that my reaction to an invasion would result in a lustrous pearl bead, that’s what actually happens with the oys-ter, when a foreigner object gets into its shell causing the irritation of the oyster’s soft body. So to evade any injuries to its mantle tissue, the oyster envelops this invader with a sac to coat it with concentric fluid of nacre which end up to form the valuable shiny pearl we know. God makes out of this defence mechanism a piece of jewelry. This pro-cess is too long and difficult to produce the amount of pearl beads we need and therefore we came up with a technique to breed Pearl Oys-ters; cultured pearls.

Pearls from water to landHistorians believe that Sumerians are the first to deal with pearls which was brought from the Persian Gulf. That was the deal with pure natural pearls. British Biologist William Saville-Kent is the man credit-ed with developing the pearl culture process which was later brought to Japan then commercially applied by the Japanese entrepreneur Mi-kimoto Kokichi who got interested in such industry since he watched pearl divers collecting pearls at the shore of Ise Island, located in Ja-pan.

CultureUsually Pearl Oysters are grown with beads when cultivated in saltwater, as for freshwater, pearl growers get resort to a piece of mantle tissue in the culture process. Both beads and mantle tissues come from a prize oyster that proved to produce the best pearls. Akoya Oysters, is the trade name of the cultured ones, their pearls harvesting is very active in the southern part of Japan. When grown to maturity, reaching about 3 years of age, oysters are ready to undergo this pains-taking process of pearl cul-ture. The culture process aims at implanting nutrients into the oyster to initiate the formation of the pearl. And to implement the implantation operation with no shocks, the oyster’s metabolism must be slowed down by placing it into an anesthetic bath. Then a mantle tissue that contains cells responsible for secreting nacre is placed into a safe location within the body of the oyster next to a bead (or a nucleus) that serves as an ir-ritant to the oyster, which then covers it by layers of nacre.

Finally the oysters are left in their natural habitats, under a vigilance care and observation for about 2 or 3 years, in which water temperature, salinity and alkalinity are constantly checked and measured. The size and color of the pearl could be specified according to the implanted nu-cleus. Smallest pearls are usually considered as the finest ones.

LocationGod propagated his miracles from the east to the west to bring to mind His omnipotence wherever we are. Pearl Oysters are usually found in warm seas, like Pacific Ocean around the Philippines, the Indian Ocean around the coasts of Australia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, China and Japan, and it could be found as well in the Red Sea, Bay of Panama, the Gulf of California and Mexico. The most famous Pearl Oysters reside in the Per-sian Gulf; a country like Bahrain sticks to deal in natural pearls and has banned selling cultured pearls.

EcologyGod created nature, maintaining its ecology equilibrium through its creatures, and manifested nature mitigation in Oysters by letting them consume Nitrogen which attracts phytoplankton. Lowering the amount of Nitrogen leave more room for Oxygen for marine creatures.

Although we managed to come up with pearls’ development technique, but that same time-consuming process which requires diligence and surgi-cal precision, elaborated to the human beings more of God’s perfection in His creation and made us aware of our limited capabilities.

By Rana Salah

Zoology

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That was literally how it all started. With a phone call in London, going to Beirut, his old boss in Beirut coincidentally was asking Simon to fly in to start the project in Cairo. It was in late 2002, early 2003, Simon was set to start working on a whole new world of challenges that lasted for nearly 4 memorable years.

2003 was moving in a very fast rate. Desiring a “cool” channel, Beirut, Amman and Dubai had already started their movements, and “now it was time for Cairo to set the standards.”

With great pride, he returned to Nile FM just a couple of months ago, and speaking of the be-ginning of that journey to where it is today, Simon is very pleased with the direction the station took, now that it has more of a local management with names like Mohamed Safi and Louay Attia; “When we first started, the ratio was 70% foreign to 30% local, and today we are talking of a ratio of 10%: 90% which is great!”

Since Louay Attia came on board, he was the starting point of the transmission from foreign voices to young local pioneers.

Simon realizes his relationship with Cairo; “I’m very close to Egypt… even though I am English, I feel very Egyptian!”

Simon Ramsden, an eclectic and affluent voice on Egypt’s No. 1 Radio Station, has returned to continually mesmerize the local residents of Cairo. Known for THE BIG DRIVE HOME, between the hours of 4-7 PM on Nile FM, Simon’s voice became the accompaniment of millions of Egyptians while meandering through the traffic, and seven years ago is where it all began.

Starting off in Cyprus, Simon became one of the most established voices of main-stream contemporary culture in the Middle East and Mediterranean region. He started in Ayia Napa where he felt he had reached the top after working on NAPA FM Radio in Cyprus from 1993 to 1995 where he hosted the afternoon show. Ramsden first arrived in Lebanon in 1996 and started to work on their No. 1 Hit Music Station RADIO ONE, where he also hosted “Simon in the Afternoon,” and it later on became the most listened to show in the country. Launching with his own TV program on local television, called “Friday Night Live;” playing off of the pun of the American NBC program; Saturday Night Live. Simon would go around the city, and broadcast live, fun pranks and challenges and record people’s reactions. “It was an interesting challenge, that then lead to radio in Beirut.”

“When I came to Cairo, I noticed there wasn’t any real, tangible, credible radio stations, and you have all these people, who are changing and wanting to have stimulation. So I actually vowed on that day; ‘I am going to make it my life’s work, to found a radio station here.’ And I said it almost in a joking way! But then of course, within one year... God works in mysterious ways. If you want something bad enough, it will definitely come.”

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Simon was also involved in voice-over productions, and just returned to Nile FM as a station consultant and oversees man-agerial decisions that would be in the best interest of the sta-tion. He is also back to presenting a daily live afternoon show in Beirut called BIG MIX DRIVE on Lebanon’s No1 hit music station MIX FM (www.mixfm.com.lb).

“It’s really funny, because I am in Egypt, while talking to Bei-rut. So I usually need the station to feed me the weather con-ditions to be able to comment on the situation while there. They would tell me “Simon, it’s raining now.” So I would need to imagine what it is like and zone myself in those conditions and talk about it… If you listen to the show, you would never think I am not there!”

Between the hours of 5-7 PM from Monday-Friday, Simon logs into the station in Beirut, from his studio in Maadi, and Live On Air he directs the local crowds into the grooves and rhythms with his voice as though he is sitting right there.

Today Simon lives and works in Maadi, where he is set-up with his own exclusive radio station studio by Dot-apple Com-pany. Servicing iMac’s, Mics, preamps, studio monitors, Apple Soundtrack Pro software, Apple Logic Pro software and Apple Garage Band software, Simon uses all utilities for music scoring

“Nile FM has evolved into something now, and I have to respect what it as become, and see if we can sprinkle some magic dust! Bringing back the shine it lost over the last couple of years.”

Lou is now working in television in Canada, working with places like the Cartoon Net-work and Discovery Channel. Safi is now the program Director of Nile FM. Both Lou and Safi are a great inspiration to Egyptian youth and aspiring local avant-garde’s. Positive and proactive characters for those who aspire to become something big one day out of self-driven passion.”

“That guy was just a simple guy who played the guitar in Cairo. Now its fantastic to see what one has become. It makes me feel very proud to know them, and see them grow. A great inspiration for others to show you ‘Yes, you can get what you want out of Life!’ You just have to work at it, believe in yourself, and get there! ... It’s all down to how you look at your life. It’s so easy to say ‘No’ to something. You surely will have your off-days, but you can change all that.”

It was during that year in 2005, that NILE FM had become recognized as one of the region’s leading stations, and not only by the region, but also from the United King-dom and United States. The desire for the station to find its own feet, Simon was able to leave and return; missing Cairo, missing the fast-paced movement of the city, he did not want to be sucked back into the hefty responsibilities he held before. After launching and establishing the No. 1 Station, Simon desired to regain his life, and it was after spending one month in Cyprus, he returned to Cairo in 2005 to start his own business GO LIVE IN STORE, wanting to remain in the center of the civitas hub.

Egypt has developed massive change, from the availability of international retail brands, to appreciating international sounds, Simon joined forces with Mohamed Ghorab, the director of Hybrid Records, to develop the sonic branding of Instore sounds. Walking into stores without sound… it felt “naked without music!”

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and music arranging with visual hybridization. His entire world is there: transmitting sounds to the worlds of Beirut and Cairo, Simon Ramsden is back, and is working full throttle with Mo-hammed Ghorab, director of Hyrbid Records, and his own Go Live In Store Label, while jam-ming to his own mixes.

Starting from the Age of 12, Simon was a radio star of his own playground. With the desire and passion to grow from the youthful beginnings of his career path, he landed his first gig by the age of 18 by performing gigs in local clubs and parties which then developed into private func-tions and corporate events touring the United Kingdom. This lead to his joining with the larg-est DJ agency which continued to push Simon into UK tours and not European tours at large. It was with his lightheartedness and determina-tion to do something he loved, Simon started to become recognized as one of the brightest radio stars in his locale, and it was while he was on his traveling expeditions that he got offered his first major radio hit on NAPRA FM Radio, Cyprus. This was his first real job, with real pay, making the passion even more rewarding: To get paid to do what you Love.

After running FM Radio on a beautiful Mediter-ranean Island, Simon’s next wave brought him to the Arab World. Entering for the first time through the doors of Beirut in the late 90s, at a time of constant urban revival from political and social warfare, Simon got picked up by one of the leading channels; Radio One, and spent three years ongoing in the pleasures of Euro-Lebanese jamboree flavors.

“Egyptian Youth were developing at such a fast rate in this vibrant city, that with all their energy, they needed a release. For something this groundbreaking to had been established from a private company with foreign voices, of course we were challenged by a lot of unease from the country’s authorities. We did not want to come off as an influence that would corrupt the minds of the youth. But we superseded the challenges and came off as the most success-ful outreach to a locals’ cruise in the streets of Cairo, enjoying some good rhythm, and partici-pating in our call-in conversations, enjoying the fact that they can connect to people who are running through the same traffic jams.”

The journey lasted Simon 2 very intensive years. He was the managing director of Nile FM Radio

Visit the dot-apple store: Ard El Golf, El Nadi Street, Maadi (Cairo-Egypt). All creatures in this article are copyrighted to dot-apple Ltd <www.dot-apple.com>

Station, and in reality, he never left Cairo - Simon was, and will always be the original voice of the city.

“There is more to Cairo then meets the eye. Bringing a win-dow on Egypt for the other, showing another perspective of Egypt, and the many things it has. Egypt is just so cool! “Egypt where it all begins” is seen on buses in London. It makes you feel proud, and I am not even Egyptian. So, how an Egyptian must feel: Wow! It’s brilliant.”

On that note, Simon tells us of a Presenter from the past, who will remain undisclosed, for the big surprise and re-launch of the Nile FM in Feb 2011, a true new year with new sound wave reso-lutions.

Stay Tuned!

To connect with Simon, visit his website: www.simonramsdenonline.comAll images of Simon Ramsden are courtesy of Jasmine Alladin Photography

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Car ExteriorThe exterior of these cars are designed by aerodynamics structure, as race cars have to have less wind resistance and required stability. The doors open to the sky in some cases, and its sides are like fins to allow for the wind to swift through easily for the speeds it will travel in. Suspension of these cars are designed to handle the flood of power from its engine for the ones that go above 1000 horsepower to a 700 horsepower bracket. They are no less than 600 horsepower in either case, and they need super sports suspension, for the maneuvering and engine is so powerful so it can handle turning very efficiently.

Traction Control System In all cars, the design must accommodate the cars speed, weight, aerodynamics, and strength of the motor even if in a «straight line» performance under normal speeds. This is to guarantee safety for the driver. It would be normal to hold a top speed of 300 km/h keeping you com-pletely safe.

The WheelsThese cars have special tires to roll over. If we know about normal passenger vehicles for exam-ple, hold wheels of 14-inch thickness, while SSC’s usually have 18-inch wheels at least in width. The width of the back tire, is usually greater than the front, so it can handle the tail of the car better and causes a greater push for the strength needed from behind. Knowing that the tire has to be a strong brand name, it has a certain material that handles temperature, speed, hu-midity; it also handles all types of weather conditions and speed impacts.

The Braking SystemWhen we come to talk about the 10 fastest cars in the world, they move no slower than 300-400 km/h. You must have a powerful brake system to stop these cars. The majority of their brake systems are no less then 8 or 6 BI-STEM, large discs, and they use mainly ceramic and carbon to handle the heat of the braking system. Often located within the wheel to make sure it stops the car efficiently and the caliber starts from 4 pistons at least.

Alright, so now is the moment to learn which are the top 10 SSC’s in the world today!

Super Sport Cars... Technically they are not cars! Just imagine you are driving an object that goes at a speed of 400 km/h, passing a distance of a playground in every second! If you happen to be in a good mood one morning, and feel like going to Alexandria for the day, just ride anyone of these and it will bring you there within half an hour instead of 2.5.

By this alone, we must admit that everyone will definitely want to have one of these cars, you just have to be maybe older than 5 years old to realize how gorgeous these vehicles really are! Being the most powerful and desirable cars in the world - if you want to ride the wind, this will be your way.

So, let’s take a closer look...

Car EngineStarting with the engines, going inside to see and feel the vehicles interior, listening to the solemn sounds of power, and holding safety between your hands, beneath your feet, having the ultimate handling and traction control, high-level comfort with prime seats and suspension. Unfortunately, only the rich of rich can ride such ve-hicles, regardless of where you live in the world, its the kind of car designed only for sports activities, low luxury rides, with a certain type of aerodynamics used only for racing. The high speed, regardless of the racing level, this car will have no problems of stopping, and in just moments!

To help you imagine the power and speed of such vehicles, think of the speed cre-ated by your own city car, and now double its engine speed. How about four times of its ordinary size, or even tent times its power. Yes, so these are Super Sports Cars.

To support such engine systems, the SSC’s must hold a particular type of exhaust system. The type that plays a symphony of serene pleasure, so when you see four outlets of exhaust, they serve this purpose.

Car InteriorThe interior of the car is a work of art. Engineering the hand made interior with two Recaro seats designed to hug the body and disallowing the opportunity of body shock, these seats keeps the driver seated in an upright position, with both hands in an controlling post. That way the driver is always in control with the engine located in the back, now they have it all.

Price: $1,700,000

Engine: 4 turbochargers - 8 liter

Weight: 4160 lbs

Torque: 1106 lb-ft

HP: 1200 hp

Top Speed: 268.2 mph

Action Vehicles

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Price: $654,000

Engine: twin turbo v8 – 7000 c.c

Weight: 2750 lbs

Torque: 1112 lb-ft at 6150 rpm

HP: 1287 hp @ 7200 rpm

Top Speed: 270 mph

Price: $555,000

Engine: twin turbo v8 – 7000 c.c

Weight: 2950 lbs

Torque: 700 lb-ft at 4800 rpm

HP: 1287 hp @ 7200 rpm

Top Speed: 248 mph

Price: $545,000

Engine: supercharged v8 – 4700 c.c

Weight: 2601 lbs

Torque: 678 lb-ft at 5700 rpm

HP: 806 hp @ 6900 rpm

Top Speed: 245 mph

Price: $970,000

Engine: v128 – 6064 c.c

Weight: 2513 lbs

Torque: 479 lb-ft at 4000 rpm

HP: 627 hp @ 7400 rpm

Top Speed: 240 mph

Price: $670,000

Engine: v12 – 5988 c.c

Weight: 3020 lbs

Torque: 485 lb-ft

HP: 660 hp

Top Speed: 217 mph

Price: $650,000

Engine: twin turbo v6 – 3494 c.c

Weight: 3241 lbs

Torque: 475 lb-ft at 4500 rpm

HP: 542 hp @ 7200 rpm

Top Speed: 217 mph

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As we saw these cars are extraordinary, even for someone like me, a professional stunt driver, I am confirming that each one of these vehicles will be an attractive package for any man or woman, any child or adult in its magnificence. A general note to any-one who would buy this car, they will learn how to drive and handle it prior to his departure. They need to take full courses to learn all maximum utilization making this vehicle very specific for the driver.

How I would wish to drive the slowest car of the fastest cars in the world: A FerrariThe satisfaction would make wonders.

So, now we wonder why don’t we see such cars in Egypt?

We are simply one of the most expensive market values in the world, due to the tax rates applied on the car as it enters the country (super sports cars particularly). Their tax values can reach 300% and 400% from its original price.

Taking the Bugatti Veron as an example, its price is 1.7 million dollars and if you include our taxes rates; it will rise to about 5 million USD, which is almost 28.5 million EGP. And for anyone who is thinking about buying such a vehicle in Cairo, they should be thinking about its servicing, and maintenance. Not even a screwdriver could be found to replace. All these cars are low rides, and with the bumps in our streets, it will not be possible to casually ride around. They will be severely tarnished if they were. We have a highway that would not approve or handle a speed of 300 or 400 km/h that these vehicles need to travel in. The traffic is also a huge factor as it will be destroyed from the traffic alone, not to mention its lacking ability to fly in the streets. The Brake systems are in now way suitable to such conditions.

In the majority of cities in Europe, these cars are always known to whom they belong, and they are counted through out the world. Police are also well informed who owns what, to make sure these vehicles are not abused, nor are they abusive to social well-being.

“With my eyes closed right now, I can imagine myself driving a VERON, with its chair hugging me, and moving at a speed no less than 430 km/h in just moments. I never argue where I will go it will just take me far away in moments…”

This text was conceived by Amr McGyver and developed thanks to the help of Ahmed Hamed Faramawy, a student in his 3rd year of Automotive Engineering at Ain Shams University. Of his many affluent goals in life to help the poor from ignorance and lack of education, Faramawy hopes to start his own business in car modification and tuning with his own workshop one day.

Price: $667,000

Engine: v12 – 7300 c.c

Weight: 384 kg

Torque: 561 lb-ft at 4000 rpm

HP: 620 hp @ 7200 rpm

Top Speed: 215 mph

Price: $333,000

Engine: v12 – 6496 c.c

Weight: 3671 lbs

Torque: 487 lb-ft at 6000 rpm

HP: 640 hp @ 8000 rpm

Top Speed: 211 mph

Price: $440,000

Engine: v10 – 5733 c.c

Weight: 3042 lbs

Torque: 435 lb-ft at 5750 rpm

HP: 612 hp @ 8000 rpm

Top Speed: 205 mph40 41

Life, Death, and Community in Cairo,s City of the DeadBy Hassan Ansah

THE CITY OF THE DEAD is a mysterious area of Cairo that many Egyptians are aware of but not intimately connected too. This book provides a historical evolution of a residential cemetery more than four centuries old. Beneath a modern multilane highway lies a vast intricately connected ancient

necropolis that stretches over three kilometres.

The primary focus of the book is to analyze, understand, and to share the unique history and culture of this hidden, yet dynamic city with the outside world. It is here that life and death reconcile under the amazingly interesting stories of the lives shared by its community members. From the Majestic Citadel to the wonderfully designed grave tombs of unknown mystic saints, this book expresses the historical and cultural voice of this indomitable city which never stops reinventing itself. This panoramic story of a city that oscillates between the sacred and the profane- ancient tombs coalesce with chaotic markets- blends the personal touch of first hand travel with the in depth provocation of history. It is a sweeping,

lucid work.

ABOUT THE AUTHORPROFESSOR HASSAN ANSAH works as an international photojournalist and documentary filmmaker for IRIN news agency. He holds a BA degree in International Relations and an

MBA in Global Business Management from the University of Maryland.

He has been published in Lonely Planet Egypt 2008, Lonely Planet Jordan 2009, The Lead Business Journal, The Community Times of Cairo, Helium online, as well as Yemen Today Magazine. Professor Ansah filmed the first documentary film dealing with Sufism in the very conservative Islamic Republic of Yemen. Mr. Ansah has lectured on international relations and global business at Western International University , Central Texas College, as well as

the American University of Cairo.

The author was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but now considers Southern California and Dubai, his primary residences.

Unwind

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...”These are dark times, there’s no denying”

If you read around and check out reviews on The Deathly Hallows, you’ll see that the most predominant theme of the hype about this film is anticipation. Literally, the most redundant keyword in the first paragraph of any article, any review or any news report is the word “Finally”. HP7 is tagged in its trailer as the finale of the worldwide phenomenon, the motion picture of a generation. Needless to say, it is one of the best selling stories of all times. Bottom line is, like the movie or not, it made over 300 million dollars in the first few days, and judging by how things look, this should be just a tiny fraction of its coming success.

As a result of the intense criticism on the last three Potter movies for not being worthy of the books, David Yates and Warner Bros. had to spread the finale on two long films; a decision leading to an utter cinematic and commercial success. And since the fans can’t get enough, you can always give them some more on the boy who lived, the chosen one and his magical adventures that have become the prevailing obsession of millions around the globe.

The gloominess of the opening scene and the dramatic dose you get from the film’s first lines spoken by Rufus Scrimgeour (Bill Nighy) tell you all about what you’re in for; a journey of darkness, a daring quest of the good to defy the evil, a hopeful adventure shadowed by blood, love, tears and death. After the sad ending of late Dumbledore, it is now Harry’s mission to find and destroy all the horcruxes that shield Lord Voldemort from death. As Potter accompanies his lifetime mates Ron and Hermione through their ultimate journey, they stumble across some of the most significant and powerful secrets of the wizarding world, the deathly hallows

When you watch The Deathly Hallows Part one, you’d only wish they did the same with at least the last two books; split them in two. God knows how many scenes and characters had to be knocked out to fit in something like The Order of the Phoenix in one movie. This time they fill it in with details that even book readers may have forgotten about. The events go on sort of an inverse bell curve scenario; it starts off exhilarating and thrilling, it mellows down a bit in the middle and then it gets all fired up towards an ending that comes very quick.

It is safe to say that behind the scenes aspects, of making a movie, all played out quite well in this one. We’ve seen more sophisticated cinematography and art direction in previous episodes of the saga, but this still does have its eye catching moments as well. Acting, however, has evidentially elevated quite a bit here. An obvious reason for that is the age of the main three characters that have grown in shape and experience through ten years of shooting. But it is not to be ignored that Emma Watson is the one that stands out this time; her character’s confusion of emotion, determination and humour were damn sure not easy to be portrayed as good as she did.

We’ve also seen something new to the saga in this one, and it was indeed some of the most amusing three minutes of the whole thing, an actual animated short. The tale of the three brothers narrated by Hermione plays back in a shadow, puppet- like animated sequence, that is just pretty entertaining.

In a nutshell, The Deathly Hallows Part one is merely is a lengthy introduction to the ultimate climax of this masterpiece of a story. It’s truly beyond me how J K Rowling is not yet up for a Noble Prize in Literature. This film paves quite the road to what’s coming ahead, and looking at that combo trailer, it gonna be quite fun. It will feel at the end as if someone has switched the TV off in the middle of your movie. You will really want some more. Too bad you’ll have to wait another eight months for it.

For other film reviews, visit the page: “In a Nutshell Reviews” by Michael Adly on Facebook

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A caleidoscope of light opens the view of the observer onto a new multi-dimensional place: the polyhedron (3-dimensions) becomes a hyper-polyhedron (4 and more-dimensions) tending to a hyper-sphere.

Patrizio Travagli adopts timelessness by unlocking a treasure of secrets: Offering regular polyhedrons to a fully functional sphere, he redesigns his given space according to its di-mensional versatility. Travagli references his principles: Plato, Luca Pacioli, and Leonardo da Vinci, when it came to continuing the conversations between the mathematicians and artists of the time regarding the secrets of the golden mean and its application to the arts and science of design and its construction to human shelter.

Pacioli, codified his mathematical references making it less likely to be recognized through vernacular means and only in numerical literature. Leonardo da Vinci however was his foremost collaborator who continued to explore beyond Greco, pre-Platonic and Platonic conversational philosophies. He was the first to publish an illutsration in the De divina pro-portione, and a leap of structural creation grasped from the 4th century BCE to the brink of the 16th century AD, is now a well-lit revelation of the twenty-first century. The dominance of cultural wealth as temporary time alterations recreate the physical lo-cation of a metropolitan fabric of metal, glass and light, to its illuminating impact on the urbane site. What comes off as a transparent bodies filled with mirrored bulks of light is a confrontation of a utopian civitas: Flatlandic BULK.

The works are on exhibit at the 12th International Cairo Biennale, Palace of the Arts, Cairo Opera House Grounds until February 12th 2011. Showing in an international exhibition of 82 international artists under the curatorial direction of Ehab Ellaban.

In his artist statement, Patrizio Travagli writes of Ludovico Sforza, in 1497, had asked Luca Pacioli to write a book about his research in mathematics. It was following that conversa-tion, that Leonardo Da Vinci was asked to complete a book of drawings based on the same mathematical methods discovered.

Leonardo brought more to the theory of dimensions. In the Florentine Biblioteca Lauren-ziana, he had the chance to study a copy of The Book of Secrets or كتاب االسرار by Al-Muradi.

Such a powerful enigma between two wealthy cultures had already proven to share simi-lar scientific interests in the fifteenth century, developing a knowledge of proportions and generating this important book: De Divina Proportione, or The Divine Proportions.

The focus of Pacioli was on Plato’s regular solids. In all cultures the attention was given to the perfection of geometry as a main goal, simultaneously in scientific and religious fields. In two dimensional geometry all regular figures tend to, and can be inscribed in a circle, and in a three-dimensional space all the regular solids tend to a sphere. We are used to reading our world through the three dimensions we “know” of. Important researches in CERN laboratories (Geneva), physicst’s are still trying to find a particle that is supposed to give mass to the photon, and then the photon can “show” us those other dimensions that exceed beyond the third.

In Patrizio Travagli’s Bulk research, he tries to show the hidden dimensions revealed through light, starting with three dimensions, and in all the five solids designed; (tetra-hedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron), they act like small light architectures, or sculptures, that the user can see a series of reflections, due to their use of mirrors and a particular kind of glass giving the perception of extra-dimensions.

bulk n.Size, mass, or volume, especially

when very large. A distinct mass or portion of matter, especially a large

one: the dark bulk of buildings against the sky.

bulkArts & Culture

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Adam Mourad and Omar Ozlap two young men from Egypt, their passion for art re-places the need for an art background to be the driving force behind their project. As much as they value art and aspire to contribute to elevate the aesthetics spirit they bring to the scene a familiar type of art to some of our ears and eyes offering a vast stage for street art to flourish in the capital.

Articulate Baboon is our heroes’ gateway to contemporary and street art to help Egyp-tian graffiti artists embark on a journey of putting an end to playing art and growing a generation who takes it more seriously.

Such journey shall include artists like Hany Rashed a well-established Egyptian contem-porary artist recently exhibited his radical side through ‘Cartoon War’ under the Articu-late Baboon roof in Designopolis (6th of October branch) in November 2010. His work shows ardent conflicting cultures in the most eccentric radical yet creative and attractive form.

As much as Egyptian contemporary, comic and street inspired pop artists are targeted to showcase the Egyptian culture and its transformations through a bouquet of contempo-rary art schools in Egypt – AB is also concerned with introducing international graffiti artists in Egypt and to Egyptian artists stemming from a strong belief in creating a forum for international and Egyptian artists to communicate and also examine the Western perception of the Egyptian culture, as shown in ‘The Weight: The Golden Soul’ exhibi-tion by Sam Flores the legendary American graffiti artist at Amuse Zamalek branch early December 2010.

“It is always fun to see what people focus on in Egypt.” Said Mourad

This undergoes quite an interesting process which requires international artists to pay a visit to the country in advance so that they can merge whatever they grasp of the Egyp-tian culture with theirs to form a comprehensive dose of art with a domestic cultural flavor and also preserve the authenticity of their work as Mourad asserted.On the other hand, Articulate Baboon plans to provide talented Egyptian artists the opportunity to showcase their talent and express the culture internationally.

Graffiti Between Acceptance And VandalismStreet art is street inspired pop art established in public places mostly referred to as graffiti. The vagaries of graffiti manifest in its infinite creativity, colors, thick lines, raw messages, and more specifically the target audience who happen to be the public and what basically puts artists on the trigger. In addition to the little nuances and tricks which separate artists and ideas from each other, which is another good reason international artists are offered a forum in Egypt to enrich the graffiti scene.

“Graffiti’s reputation abroad is changing. People grew more accepting to graffiti as fine art when in the Middle East it is considered rough and vandalism.” Mourad said.

Inspite of the huge number of talented Egyptian artists in the country, too little do we know and see of the true graffiti art on the streets. We might see scribbles on the eleva-tor, the school walls, bathroom walls and doors, classroom desks, etc… This only shows that both self-expression and graffiti have played a fair role in our life. But some had no clue this was graffiti and others did not take it up a notch.

“Graffiti is what the country needs at this time. It is a nice way to express yourself. There’s a lot of talent and it’s a shame all the art that comes out is the same kind of art” said Ozlap. Articulate Baboon aspires to take the lead of empowering graffiti art in the country and the region being located in the heart of Zamalek, the art galleries mecca.

“In 5-10, even 15 years, all art galleries will be doing the same” Ozlap said.

The Lowbrow Aestheticson the Trigger

May Kosba uncovers the harborage of counter-culturein Egypt and the Middle EastIf creativity was a mortal it would have long been vanished and left us with a royal blockade of emotions and ideas swaying back and forth between black and white and a few clouds of grey. Yet through the darkest and brightest of the two worlds, creativity thrives with motion and ideas bringing out in the open the sleeping layers of beauty inside every one of us, each in their own way.

Creativity often defined as art; it is mostly how artistic a man can be to send the message across with less conflict and ample zeal. It is rather the talent of harnessing the rigidness of rejection, diversity, and mix-ups into being able to stack it in a colorful rara avis.

Flattering it is to think that there is an artist engraved deep inside every one of us. You can be a problem solving artist, teacher artist, tree trimmer artist – as you can be a black, white, yellow, or brown artist.

Art falls among the nouns which have no home, no color but definitely ripe with taste and the need to utilize your senses – not the usual five senses, it is however the sense of appreciating art and the will to preserve an omnific blessing.

So What About True Art?How many of us with too little knowledge of art stood in awe reading and analyzing a painter’s work? Too many observations of different perspectives wax up the painting’s territory with a secret wish of possessing half the painter’s talent to command the brush bend in the most paradoxical forms succumbing to the highs and lows of our imageries and stories.

How many of us apart from our appreciation of art plucked up to purchase a painting and have it exclusively hanging on our walls? We might not be looking at an insurmountable amount of buyers; however, the appreciation is undeniable.

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The Artist Not the GalleryArticulate Baboon’s goal is to reach out to graffiti and street inspired pop artists by first offering artists a forum to showcase their work by seeking them out and urging them to push their boundaries to be in tune with AB’s work, and also teaming up with the nonprofit sector offering artists a wider space for learning and picking up on all the new techniques through training workshops to be able to sneak out on the street in old neigh-borhoods and paint, as well as merging them with the international art scene so that they are connected and learning.

AB has an undying faith in artists – Mourad and Ozlap strongly believe artists are the back bone of galleries. “The artist is more important than the gallery. Without the artist there is no gallery. Galleries have to understand the importance of artists.” Ozlap clarifies.

Artists are free spirits. They can do all the work from home but as Ozlap says “There’s no place for them to sell on a gallery level.” It seems that well established galleries only tar-get well established artists leaving rising artists with no space to be seen or sold. Mourad and Ozlap seem to have scanned the art scene in Egypt and as much as they are trying to establish a certain brand and certain identity, they are concerned with boosting the graf-fiti art scene through empowering rising artists and make the Egyptians familiar with this type of art.

Articulate Baboon wants to “form a little niche in the market” Mourad adds and in order to be able to do that there has to be a continuous financial support for artists to keep pouring creativity and for rising galleries to continue to sponsor them. “It is costly to run a gallery like that” Ozlap said. Financial support cannot be provided by word of mouth or a pat on the back, it is rather crucial that art can be dealt with like any other commodity especially intellectual commodities such as books. Books are no less than paintings. If a writer’s goal is to be read and preserved – the artist goal cannot be any different.

Writers and artists are the two faces of the same coin – they need to be nurtured and sup-ported emotionally and financially to be able to survive. Both are the documentators of the country’s history and the people’s psychology. They are needed, for their work lives long.

The Lowbrow Aesthetics Meet Egyptian GeneticsOur Pharaoh ancestors had long preceded the world in creating a documentation revolu-tion on the walls of old Egypt, found in their tombs. It can be referred to as an early grace-ful perception of graffiti which gives us enough purpose to revive our ancestors’ art work and continue to enrich our country’s cultural scene.

If you are an artist go out there and show up at Articulate Baboon’s door and shine. They can be found on this link: www.articulatebaboon.com, and easily contacted via e-mail or at either Designopolis or Amuse locations in 6th of October and Zamalek.

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Hany Rashed shows his 8th solo exhibition at Mashrabia Gallery in Cairo, returning with a new collection of works under the title Beware of the Chili, or الشطة من For the first time we see .احترس Rashed depart from the attachment of a full-fig-ured body and now strictly observing inanimate ob-jects, he identifies items like a bucket, a teapot, a jacket and trousers. English and Arabic terms fuse in a very unconventional and ostentatious plain man-ner, whereby an object is drawn in contour lines, simplified by duo-tonalities, layered on a wall-paper motif, and then re-emphasized by writing the names of other objects not seen in the image, above the other preceding layers.

Born in Cairo, 1975, and atelier trainee at Mohamed Abla’s studio from 1994 - 2004, Hany Rashed refers to European popular image in his collages where he fuses pictures of political meetings, cartoon icons, religious ceremonies, of war, fashion and sports with his individual painterly abstractions. Press doc-uments of historical events are altered in such a way that reality turns into fiction.

Cowboys juxtaposed against donkeys, symmetrically aligned by a muscle man, then flanked by the words a plane is equated to a washing ”شارع“ and ”محطة“machine and a fridge; car mechanics are also occu-pied by words like “arm,” “hair,” “stomach,” and “nose.” The sarcastic relationship between infant and adult in learning capacities, reading the words to reminisce a child’s classroom when learning their first words, Rashed exposes the irony of life. From love messages of “habiby” and that primary motion picture close-up kiss, to a suffragette-like women’s gossip corner, embalmed in a ring of women’s names, Spiderman and lizards equated to zodiacal signs. Rashed exceeded his iconographic normality’s and focused on the social commonalities of learn-ing 101, not only the Arabic or English languages, but the parallels it makes by free association.

Rashed just recently shown in Articulate Baboon’s Gallery in 6th of October City “Cartoon War.” Be-ware of the Chili act as a continuum to what he had started in this emerging gallery of inconspicuous works all leading to the influences of graffiti and comic art in contemporary Egyptian society.

The works will be on view at Mashrabia Gallery un-til January 13th 2011. 8 Champollion Street, Downtown, Cairowww.mashrabiagallery.org

BEWARE OF THE CHILI

احترس من الشطة

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With the first opening to Al Qasimi’s collection, there was an amalgam of works on exhibit. Introducing the collection for the first time to an international audi-ence in March 2010, there was one particular piece Sultan had highly appreciat-ed and is a good example of what the collection has to offer: A work he had dis-covered through Al Qattan Foundation, of a 21-year old Palestinian female artist whose life had ended during that point in her career due to a terminal illness. Her name was Layan Shawabkeh, who had won Qattan Foundation’s Young Art-ist of the Year Award in 2008 with her Loss Series where she portrayed a group of female figures, painted in luminescent hues of green and yellow against a black backdrop shown in very distorted shapes, almost as though they were not female, but just human forms, exasperated by the evolution of contemporary life. The type of life that has only seen warfare, and constant political unrest that a young lady of 21 could not but take as a conventional modus operandi to her own living.

It was in those images, did we see Gaza in the eyes of a Palestinian. Projecting the sense of loss, birth, absorption and reincarnation, do they appear with open wombs, lacking arms; almost as though they were lacking bodies, lacking minds, and lacking souls?

It was with the Ladies of Gaza, amongst other works with great market val-ue such as Dia Azzawi’s sculptures, Chant Avedissian’s Oum Kolthoum, Khaled Hafez’s Seated Goddess with Side Up from the Temple of Flight Series, Steve Sabella’s In Exile color prints, Abdul Nasser Gharem’s Men At Work Series, Ghada Amer’s Snow White Without the Dwarves, Susan Hefuna’s Patience is Beautiful, as well as Hassan Sharif, Sabhan Adam, and a unity of many more. All works leading to just a few examples of what Sultan Al Qasimi holds, out of maybe 600 works of art, built over the past year alone have been shown in Zoom Art Fair in Miami, Contemporary Istanbul, and ofcourse Maraya Art Centre with the current exhibition “Residua” or املتبقي.

The Barjeel Collection:A Sentimental Realization to the Arab Identity

It was a couple of years ago, when Sultan Sooud Al Qasimi had begun to collect art out of the passion of aesthetic pleasure. It was within that first year, he had collected maybe 60 works of art, all by personal choice, and well-recommended works, Sultan sought to find works that would not be typically seen in the popu-lar nuances of the contemporary art scene from the Arab World, however served a very crucial purpose when it came to the understanding of what the collective culture had to offer.

Publically founding the collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation in March 2010, with the new opening of Maraya Art Centre, a three-floor building of arts, cul-ture and a social hub of combined distinctions. The Barjeel Foundation opened on the 2nd floor to show a rotational exhibit of a selection of works designed to accommodate a curatorial approach that would help expose, inform and relay the importance of arts from the region and beyond. The first floor holds a library, computer station and work/study desk, with a film screening room, all offered by Shelter, while the third floor holds the gallery space run by Al Maraya Art Cen-tre, an important and popular center for contemporary art exhibitions, primarily granted to the regional ambience, and secondly to the international arena wel-coming new ideas and educational programs in the form of workshops, exhibi-tions, talks and discussions that would allow for local visitors to interact with a more affluent market of artistic and cultural importance in the non-commercial realm.

Abdulnasser Gharem, Men At WorkImage courtesy of the Barjeel Art Foundation

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The actual meaning of the term ‘residua’ are the remains, or rather what is left be-hind from chemical residues. How alteration continuously occurs in the form of seen and unseen formats, “scattered or composed.” A feature recognized in Arabic culture, whereby they are challenged with contemporary identities, diversities of associating to one meaning, one concept, and one affirmation, are however shifted, forgotten, and dissolved into newer reinvented realities. As remnants to immigration, diasporic departures and social alleviations into the types of environments an artist might be able to identify him or herself with an alternative. Existent or non-existent, it is in that ‘Other’ that formulates a new meaning. Residua is composed of twenty-five artists, all established and significant names to the purpose of the collection; from Ghada Amer, to Huda Lutfi, Camille Zakaria, Jawad Al Malhi, Youssef Nabil, Adam Henein, and more who have fulfilled the approach in identifying their political and social positioning in the Arab World, either by being of Palestinian origin who had departed quite young, or remained and only left at temporary intervals to rethink the positioning of their lives in their ever changing lands. Be it Egyptian, who has also remained and become a pop icon of feminist modes reinvented into found dolls, or super hero projections found in batman forms, or even just very ancient Egyptian icons of women adorned in Sufic scripts. Or simply monstrous looking creatures, an emblem of untitled exhaustive series coming out of Syria, not to iconify the human form, but to re-establish it under newer realms of social misunderstandings, repeated again and again and again, only to reiterate their existence without acknowledging their identity.

All these are but a few themes suggested to what the collection holds. An emblem to many movements that Sultan Sooud Al Qasimi quite ostentatiously selected only to educate, promote and realize the embodiments secured in the palm of the Arab World; Sharjah (UAE).

To view more visit: www.barjeelartfoundation.com

Who is Fig?

Opening in Riviera, Heliopolis comes one of 12 restaurants in an A-class setting. FIG, a newly founded cafe by SAAL opens for the first time and acts as a means for interaction between the people through arts and culture. Starting with their own publication that is the trendiest cultural event calendar in Cairo, the walls will be occupied by monthly exhibi-tions, screens will stream the most happening international films, and watch out for the food that comes to your table. Their culinary arts are the simplest in social demeanor, yet most delicious mouthwatering experience you can have with a pizza>s and burger>s brought to you from Roma2Go and Buffalo Burger, as well as an agreeable selection of salads, appetizers, and cold cuts. A special menu will be provided on sushi only during weekends, . Not all at once, but it>s all there.

A Bit About SAAL

SAAL is an Egyptian Company founded in 1998, with the first themed coffee shop: Football Cafe. The successful launching period encouraged SAAL to open a continuum to their international marketability, by dis-covering Nubia Cafe in Anaheim USA, that became one of the trendiest Middle Eastern spots of the city abroad. Egypt is the headquarters and magical source of all SAAL>s inspiration. The diverse, wild and pas-sionate atmosphere offered by the culture is reinvented in the passion of food and the trendsetting atmosphere for visitors to enjoy their time away from their daily routines.

FIG is SAAL’s latest project: Inspired by the People!

Khaled Hafez, “Seated Goddess with Side Up” from the Temple of Flight Series, Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Caprice Horn

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The hidden pearl of theWestern desert

The over-night trip was pretty exhausting, 500+ Km along the road from Cairo to Matrouh and then around 300 Km to the south into the Western Desert. After 9 hours of straight travel, the only thing you need to see is a warm meal, a hot tub bath and a clean bed.

As I stood in the center of this very small town, starring at the crumbling ruins of the 12th century fortress that locals call Shali and which constitutes the old town of Siwa where inhabitants resided safely within its walls, and listening to nearby shop-keepers in the typi-cal nomadic garments as they communicate in a local dialect of a centuries old Berber lan-guage, unspoken in any other area in Egypt: I was simply perplexed! In the exterior, it was just a humble village where houses are still built with clay, and where the local means of transportation are limited to donkey-driven carriages and carts. It seemed to be the literal opposition to modernity. “Just another village, not far from my home-village in the Delta”, I thought.

I found my condolence in the soon to start desert safari that we were scheduled to have as soon as we arrived in town. And so I separate myself from even those small traces of modern life that manifests itself in houses, shops and imported goods that fill up the town center, and immerse myself in an eternal view of the golden sands. Just miles and miles of endless dunes that leaves you totally disoriented and bewildered, needless to say scared as the 4WD vehicles race up and down the steep slopes. Right before sunset, we stop over a high sand dune and indulge into a tiring contest of sand boarding, a Sisyphean task where we would sit or stand on a wooden board, slide down the dune and then breathlessly struggle our way up the absorptive fine sand. After sunset, a camp is set up and people gather around the bonfire for a delicious fire-cooked meal. When darkness falls, the desert sky is covered by a blanket of a thousand stars so close you can almost reach out and pick up a bunch of them.

Our rented bikes navigate us as we follow the Lonely Planet map through the palm fields and olive gardens which surround the town center in an almost perfect circle. The long leaves touch our heads gently and we stretch out our hands to pick some dates. It was the sweetest dates I ever tasted, fresh off a palm tree. It was only our second day in Siwa and we couldn’t be more eager to have our own tour in its whereabouts, so we rented some bikes from a local shop and headed on a lonely-traveler adventure across the fields. Four KM away from the town, the hill of Aghurmi stands ahead as we approach the small ticket of-fice on the side of the road. We climb up the short hill into the ruins of the temple of the Or-acle. At some point in time, probably around 700 BC, this temple which was originally built in worship to the sun god Amon-Ra, housed a divine oracle whose fame was widespread in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the temple itself has placed itself in historical tales

Sherine Adel discovers... because of one single visit. In 331, Alexander the great, having conquered Egypt which was then ruled by Persians, set sail from his newly-founded city of Alexandria, reached Mersa Ma-truh, and marched toward Siwa along the desert route that we’ve just used only yesterday.

As it was customary for each of the pharaohs of Egypt’s 28th Dynasty to travel to Siwa to be acknowledged at the temple as the son of Amon-Ra, Alexander was no less. He wanted the same declaration of divine power to legitimize his conquest of Egypt and put himself on the same footing as the pharaohs. As we entered the temple, or what’s left of it, nothing seemed apparent to such great history. The site consisted of crumbled walls and passages, and no specific structure. However, the magnificent panoramic view of the town and its surrounding fields and natural springs is alone worth the 4KM trip.

We take a different route back to the center of town. On the way we stop by a large field to have our lunch. We’d grabbed some tuna cans, bread, cheese and some drinks from the local super-market early this morning, so all we had to do was a dinner table, so we improvised one! A few wooden logs thrown here and there did the trick, using some as seats and a couple of them as a table to lay our food on. Soon, we had company too, as some local children with ages rang-ing from 4 years old to 10 years old gathered in silence watching us from afar. We tried to invite them over but they wouldn’t approach, they just giggled and exchanged naughty remarks about the “strangers in their field”. One of them, a skinny 7 years old boy had the courage to ask us if we would like some dates. It’d have been such a silly question to ask him “from where?”, so we just nodded. He then literally “walked” his way up a three storey palm tree in an unspoken agility, held the end of his red shirt with his teeth and filled the gap in between with some dates then “walked” – this time backwards - again down to earth. He dropped the dates right in front of our amazed eyes and ran back to join his gang. We were so touched by the gentle gesture that we insisted to offer the kids some biscuits in exchange, the younger ones showed interest, but the older ones quickly refused politely saying that give-away food is for charity, and they wouldn’t accept charity. A wave of disappointment at my “modern” life acquired culture struck me as I realized the pride of a 7 -10 bare-footed year old in simple clothes who understood the difference between “need” and “desire” almost instinctively.

After a 10 KM bike-ride all day, it’s only sane to have some rest. So we head back to the hotel for a quiet nap that lasts till eight in the evening. We had heard during the day that a café near Cleopatra spring offers a nice dinner over a bonfire and if we’re lucky there’d be a Siwan show. Not exactly knowing what to expect a “Siwan show” to be, we rent a couple of donkey-carts to take us to the spring. Moving through pitch black narrow lanes among the fields, it takes us around 15 minutes before we could see the bonfire and hear the loud chanting accompanied by soft drum beats. Suited in a secluded area right in the middle of the endless fields is this natural water spring known a Juba spring or Cleopatra spring. In the morning, it looks like a circular swimming pool, and is treated as one too since most visitors cannot resist taking a dive into its emerald water. Right next to the spring is a small café, with wooden rooftop, wooden chairs and woolen rags and pillows spread about. A bonfire is lit in the middle of the yard next to the spring, while candles are spread all around the concrete edge of the spring. Diners are invited to pick up their food from an open buffet set up inside the café, then choose their seat in the yard, circling the Siwan ensemble of men in their local costumes of white “gelbab” and head cover – called “hammudi” – who enthusiastically chant in their special Siwan language to the beats of a couple of drummers. A couple of them also perform some sort of a traditional belly dance as part of the entertaining show.

It’s next to impossible to experience Siwa in just two days, let alone summing up a history that is as old as history itself in just a few pages. Those two days had left an imprint on my soul that would probably last forever. It is said that Siwa casts a spell on all its visitors, just one visit is enough to make you addicted to it forever. So, I’m sure that this will not be the last. Siwa still has a lot of treasures to discover and deeper culture to experience, so let that be another story to tell.

More can be read on “A Cup of History” BlogsiteImage courtesy of the author

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درر العلم بشوارع مصر الجديدة

أسماء شوارع كلها السخاوى، المقريزى، شارع السيد الذهبى، شارع الدين اللقانى، شارع شمس إبراهيم الميرغنى، شارع شارع يجمعهم حى مصر الجديدة، ولكن يجمعها كذلك عنصر أهم، هو أنها جميعاً تحمل أسماء علماء أجالء وشيوخ كبار عاش كثير منهم

فى مصر وذاع صيتهم بها.

المقريزىهو شيخ المؤرخين المصريين » أحمد بن علي المقريزي » المعروف باسم » تقي الدين المقريزي » ولد في القاهرة764 هـ الموافق 1364م. ُعرف بالمقريزي نسبة لحارة بمدينة بعلبك، فى لبنان، تعرف بحارة المقارزة فيقال أن أجداده من بعلبك وأن والده ذهب إلى القاهرة حيث ولى بها بعض الوظائف. كان المقريزي محل احترام رجال الدولة في عصره وكانوا يعرضون عليه أسمى المناصب فكان يجيب مرة ويرفض أخرى، وحبب إليه العلم في آخر أمره فأعرض عن كل مظاهر الحياة وأبهتها وفّرغ نفسه للعلم وكان ميله إلى التاريخ أكثر من غيره حتى اشتهر ذكره به وبعد صيته فألف كثيراً وأجاد في مؤلفاته التي أربت على مائتي مجلد كبار، ورغم ذلك فقد

قال عن نفسه »وقلما أجاد مكثر« .عاش المقريزي جانباً من حياته معاصراً لدولة المماليك البحرية كما عاش شطرها اآلخر في عهد المماليك البرجية وشغل العديد من وظائف الدولة في عصره، حيث ولي فيها الحسبة والخطابة واإلمامة عدة مرات، ثم عمل مع الملك الظاهر برقوق ودخل دمشق مع ولده

الناصر سنة 810 هـ، وُعرض على المقريزي قضاؤها فأبى، ثم عاد فيما بعد إلى مصر فيتوفى بها845 هـ الموافق 1442 م.والشارع الذى يحمل اسم المقريزى يقع فى منطقة منشية البكرى

شمس الدين السخاوىهو مؤرخ كبير وعالم شهير فى الحديث والتفسير واألدب، وعلم من أعالم مؤرخي عصر المماليك. ولد في ربيع األول سنة 831 هـ، الموافق 1428م، في باب الفتوح بالقاهرة، وبعدها انتقل إلى ملك ألبيه مجاور لمسكن ابن حجر العسقالني. سافر شمس الدين السخاوى في البلدان سفراً طوياًل وصنف أكثر من مائتي كتاب أشهرها » الضوء الالمع في أعيان القرن التاسع » ترجم نفسه فيه بثالثين صفحة،

وترك تراثا علمياً ناصعاً في الحديث والتاريخ. وقد مات بالمدينة المنورة ودفن بالبقيع بجوار مشهد اإلمام مالك.والشارع الذى يحمل اسمه اليوم يقع خلف شارع الخليفة األمون، ويشتهر أكثر ما يشتهر بالمول التجارى الكبيرة لبيع أجهزة ومتعلقات

الكمبيوتر والمعروف بـ«مول السخاوى« فى مصر الجديدة.

إبراهيم اللقانىهو إبراهيم بن إبراهيم بن حسن بن علي بن عبد القدوس بن الولي الشهير محمد بن هارون اللّقاني المالكي، المصري. وله اتصال هو وقبيلته المنحدر منها بالنسب الشريف. وكان ال يظهره تواضعا منه. ولقبه »اللقاني« نسبة إلى لقانة، قرية من قرى مصر. بعد طول المراس مع العلوم الشرعية وصحبة العلماء عرف الناس الشيخ اللقانى كأحد العلماء األعالم وأئّمة اإلسالم المشار إليهم بسعة االطالع والرسوخ في العلوم الشرعية، حتى أصبح مرجع العلماء في المشكالت والفتاوى في وقته، مما جعله منافسا لرجال الدولة في زعامتهم على الناس، وفارضا عليهم قبول شفاعته وتدّخالته في تظلّمات الناس وقضاء مصالحهم، كان له كثير من التالمذة حتى قالوا: » لم يكن

أحد من علماء عصره أكثر تالمذة منه .وفى سنة 1041هـ 1632 م سافر اإلمام اللقاني ألداء فريضة الحج، وعند رجوعه لبّى داعي ربّه، فتوّفي بالقرب من مدينة »أيلة«

، أى العقبة، بطريق الركب المصري، ودفن بمكان وفاته.يمتد شارع إبراهيم اللقانى على حدود منطفة الكوربة، بدءاً من تقاطعه مع كل من شارع القبة والخليفة المأمون ثم يتقاطع مع شارع األهرام ويتجه ليصب فى شارع كليوباترا، وهو شارع حيوى يزخر بالمحالت التجارية المتنوعة ويعد جزًءا غنًيا من مركز التسوق

فى منطقة روكسى.

شمس الدين الذهبىالدين في مدينة دمشق في ربيع اآلخر 673هـ الملقب بشمس الذهبي أبو عبد هللا ولد محمد بن أحمد بن عثمان بن قايماز الموافق أكتوبر 1274م. نشأ في أسرة كريمة تركمانية األصل، يعمل والده في صناعة الذهب، فبرع فيها وتميز حتى ُعرف بالذهبي وكان رجال صالًحا محًبا للعلم، فعني بتربية ولده وتنشئته على حب العلم. وفي سن مبكرة انضم إلى حلقات تحفيظ القرآن الكريم حتى حفظه وأتقن تالوته. ثم اتجهت عنايته لما بلغ مبلغ الشباب إلى تعلم القراءات وهو في الثامنة عشرة من عمره، فتتلمذ على شيوخ اإلقراء في زمانه، وفي الوقت الذي كان يتلقى فيه القراءات مال االمام الذهبي إلى سماع الحديث الذي ملك عليه نفسه، فاتجه إليه، والزم شيوخه، وبدأ رحلته الطويلة في طلبه. ترك اإلمام الذهبي إنتاًجا غزيًرا من المؤلفات بلغ أكثر من مائتي كتاب، تناولت القراءات والحديث ومصطلحه، والفقه وأصوله والعقائد والرقائق، غير أن معظم مؤلفاته كانت في علوم التاريخ وفروعه، ومن أشهرها كتاب تاريخ اإلسالم ووفيات المشاهير واألعالم وكتاب سير أعالم النبالء. التأليف حتى كّل بصره للحديث في دمشق، ويواصل بالتدريس في خمس مدارس يقوم النشاط الذهبي موفور وظل اإلمام في أخريات عمره، حتى فقد اإلبصار تماماً، ومكث على هذا الحال حتى تُوفي في 3 ذوالقعدة 748هـ الموافق 4 فبراير

1348م.

يقع شارع شمس الدين الذهبى فى حدود منطقة أرض الجلف بمصر الجديدة، ويشتهر بوجود كنيسة العذراء المعروفة باسم أحمد شارع مخرج مع الميرغنى شارع وتقاطع فهمى أسماء شارع بين وصل همزة يمثل وهو الجولف، أرض كنيسة

تيسير.

إعداد/ شيرين عادل

السيد الميرغنىالسيد محمد عثمان الميرغني الشهير بالختم هو مؤسس الطريقه الختمية الصوفية عام 1817م المنتشرة في مصر والسودان أسر أعرق من واحدة إلى وينتمى والزبيدي. إدريس بن أحمد والسيد الجبرتي من كل لها أرخ والتى وأثيوبيا وإريتريا األشراف بمكة المكرمة وهي أسرة الميرغنى. ولد السيد الميرغني بالطائف ودفن في مكة المكرمة بالمعال بعد أن عاش حياة من المجاهدات في سبيل الدعوة اإلسالمية طاف فيها أنحاء واسعه من األرض وأسلمت على يديه جموع كثيرة. وواصل أبناؤه

مسيرته من بعده فاشتهر الكثير من أبنائه وأحفاده باالشتغال بالدعوة اإلسالمية وخاصة فى مصر والسودان. ويعتبر شارع الميرغنى من أكبر الشوارع الرئيسية بمصر الجديدة ويمثل الحد الشمالى الفاصل بينها وبين حى مدينة نصر فى تعريف الحدود اإلدارية للمنطقة، حيث يمتد من شارع النزهة شمااًل وحتى شارع الخليفة المأمون جنوباً متقاطعاً مع كل

من شارعى الثورة وصالح سالم.

بقلم شيرين عادل

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وسنعرض مًعا عبر أعدادنا املتالحقة إن شاء اهلل أحداث هذه األسر، فتاريخ املصريني فى رأيى هو أن تستغرب ما تعرفه عنه كل يوم أكثر من الذى قبله. وينصح دائًما بقراءة »موسوعة مصر القدمية« للدكتور سليم حسن، الذى توفى عام 1961، ملن يريد

أن يقتفى أثار هذه احلضارة مبساعدة مصرية.

من المصريين وللمصرييننرى أنه من الضرورى االتصال بالوجود املصرى عن طريق التحدث عن شخصيات انبثقت من مجتمعنا املصرى القدمي أو أماكن خلقها اهلل للمصريني وأثرت فيهم حتى تشكل تاريخ املصريني الذى نستقبله فى حاضرنا ونرسله ملستقبلنا. فمع سلسلة ذاكرتنا فى ولترتسم وأكثر أكثر املعرفة هذه لنعمق لنا، معروفة وأماكن شخصيات عن أيًضا سنتكلم املصريني، بدايات

التاريخية ماهية هذه الشخصيات واألماكن بإدراك توقيتها وتأثيرها.

شخصية من المصريينفى هذه املرة سنحكى عن شخصية من املصريني، وهذا ألنه مت ذكرها بطريقة مثيرة للجدل فى كتاب يدعى »حياة بنى إسرائيل

فى مصر بني حقائق الدين ومصادر التاريخ«، قام بإعداده مؤخرًا مركز األهرام للنشر والترجمة والتوزيع. وهى امللكة نفرتيتى.

نفرتيتى هى زوجة امللك إخناتون الذى حكم مصر ملدة ما يقرب من 18 عاًما، ويعتقد أن فترة حكمه قد كانت بني 1370 حتى 1352 ق.م. هى من أهم شخصيات األسرة الثامنة عشر أى فى عهد الدولة احلديثة. إذن فنحن فى فترة بعيدة متاًما عن بدايات

املصريني. وهى أم لست بنات، توفيت إحداهن وهى صغيرة وانتحب عليها كل من نفرتيتى وأخناتون كثيرًا.

تنتمى هذه امللكة إلى أسرة مثيرة للجدل، فقد ظهر بها ملوك قاموا بإجنازات ضخمة وملوك يغلفهم الغموض مثل زوج ملكتنا إخناتون الذى لقب نفرتيتى بالوريثة، مما يعطيها احلق فى حكم مصر بعد وفاة زوجها امللك، ويعتقد أنها حكمت البالد مبا أنها صورت وهى تضرب أسيرًا مبقمعة حربية وهو الفعل الذى ال يقوم به

إال ذكر يحكم البالد..

ومعناه إيـتـى« »نــِفــِرت بالهيروغليفية اسمها جاء أجلها من التى أو أٍت اجلمال أو أتى قد اجلمال نـِفـِرو بـ«نـِفـِر ولقبت قادمة اجلميلة أو اجلمال أتون« أى جميلة جميالت أتون أو جميل اجلمال أتون. وأتون هو إله قرص الشمس والذى فرضه إخناتون كهنة متحديًا لهم موحد كإله املصريني على اإلله أمون والذى كان يعبد منذ أمد بعيد، ويعتبر هذا الفعل من أكثر األشياء التى أتت بالكثير من

املشاكل على إخناتون وعائلته.

املصرية للدولة جديدة عاصمة ببناء إخناتون قام رسائل أهم بها اكتشبف والتى العمارنة بتل مصرية والتى حتوى العالقات الدبلوماسية الدولية وهى رسائل تل العمارنة املكتشفة عام 1887، وقد تعرب نفرتيتى امللكة من مهمة رسالة بها وجدت

بها عن خوفها قائلة:من خدمى، أحًدا أتزوج لن أوالد، لدى ليس مات، »زوجى

إنى خائفة«

كانت تستغيث امللكة مبلك خيتا، إحدى ابنه لها يرسل لكى األسيوية، املمالك

يخلف وريث وجود لعدم نظرًا ليتزوجها تبالغ نفرتيتى تكن ولم مات، الذى والده عرش

فى خوفها من التربص بها، فقد قتل ابن ملك خيتا فى الطريق ثم أعلن »شوبيليو لوما« ملك خيتا احلرب على

مصر. إذن فقد شاب التوتر مصر منذ تولى إخناتون ٫ زوج نفرتيتى٫ العرش وحتى بعد موته.

ينص الكتاب املذكور فى بداية حديثنا عن نفرتيتى أنها من بنى إسرائيل، وهو الذى جعل الكثير من علماء األثار والباحثني فى تاريخ مصر فى حالة استنفار من مثل هذه املعلومة، إن صحت، ويرون أن نفرتيتى من أصل مصرى، نستطيع أن والدليل على ذلك أن نفرتيتى من أصل مصرى صريح البعض يرى أراء، فمثاًل أن أصل نفرتيتى يحتمل عدة أن نقول اسمها فرعونى، فقد سبق أن تزوج ملوك مصريون من غير مصريات ولكنهن احتفظن باسمهن األجنبى وحرصن على عدم تغييره مثل زوجة أمنحوتب الثالث من األسرة الـ18 وكذلك زوجة رمسيس الثانى من األسرة الـ19 إذن فلماذا قامت األسر من املعهود غير األمر وهو غير مصرى، أصل من كانت إذا هيروغليفى اسم إلى اسمها بتغيير بالذات نفرتيتى امللكية فى تلك الفترة. ولكن مع كم التغيير الذى حدث فى مصر مع مجئ إخناتون للحكم، من تغيير ديانة وعاصمة فال يستبعد أن تقوم ملكة بتغيير اسمها، فهى فترة إستثنائية فى تاريخ مصر فى مختلف األحوال. هناك رأى أخر أنها من املمكن أن تكون من أصل غير مصرى أواًل ألن جمالها كان مختلًفا عن جمال املصريني وثانًيا ألن من معانى اسمها هو

اجلميلة أتت، ورمبا يشير هذا إلى أنها قدمت من خارج مصر.

وما دمنا ذكرنا جمالها، فبالفعل تعتبر نفرتيتى من أجمل ملكات مصر، ودل على ذلك متثالها املشهور من احلجر اجليرى الذى اكتشف فى تل العمارنة والذى يحتويه متحف برلني، ويقال أن العالم األملانى ودفيج بورخاردت الذى اكتشف التمثال

فى أوائل القرن العشرين قد ادعى عدم وجود قيمة للتمثال لكى يتمكن من أخذه خارج مصر.وتعرض مصر بعض األجزاء احملطمة لتمثال أخر لها من احلجر الرملى األسمر فى املتحف املصرى.

ولذلك جند متابعى احلضارة املصرية القدمية مترقبني لعودة متثال نفرتيتى من متحف برلني إلى مصر، فقد واجهت نفرتيتى صعوبات كثيرة لكى تبقى على حياتها فى مصر ولذا يجب أن يعود متثالها متوًجا مرة أخرى إلى بلده مصر.

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بدايات المصريينإن حضارتنا التى متتد ألالف السنوات لم تظهر فجأة، ويرجع الفضل إلى عالم املصريات البريطانى فلندرز بيترى

Flinders Petrie، والذى توفى عام 1942، فى أن يزيل الغبار عن نشأة احلضارة املصرية املبكرة وذلك عن طريق قيامه بحفائر فى منطقة الالهون عند مدخل الفيوم عام 1889 ثم ميدوم التى تبعد حوالى 90 كم جنوب غرب القاهرة ثم طوخ شمال

القاهرة٫ حتى أخذ العلماء من بعده يجوبون احلفائر مثلما فعل هو بعدة أماكن.

إن تكوين هذه احلضارة قد تأثر بتغيرات األرض فمع انحسار اجلليد - الذى غطى األرض ألالف السنني - ثم بدء عصر اجلفاف اجلديد، فرت بعض احليوانات إلى وادى النيل عند تكونه فتبع اإلنسان هذه التحركات ليبدأ فى رحلة الصيد الطويلة على ضفاف هذا النهر الذى ارتسم بني املقطم وهضبة األهرام وامتد حتى مصبه فى البحر املتوسط وكان هذا املصب فى صورة خليج ثالثى الشكل يبعد عن البحر حوالى 200 كم وأضحى يترسب على ضفافه الغرين الذى شكل، مع مرور األيام، الدلتا التى نراها اليوم ودفن حتته )رأس حوف القريبة من القاهرة(، ومرمدة بنى سالمة على حافة الكثير من القرى، تشهد عليها فى عصرنا قرية مثل العمرى الدلتا الغربية 50 كم شمال غرب القاهرة والتى عثر بها على أقدم فخار صنعه اإلنسان دون استعمال أى ألة، ودميه وكوم أوشيم وقصر الصاغة فى الفيوم. أما فى الوجه القبلى عثر على مدينة فى بلدة دير طاسا قرب البدارى جنوب أسيوط، وقد قدر فلندرز عمر مدنيتها بنحو 10000 أو 13000 سنة ق.م. وقدرها أخرون بنحو 5000 سنة، فقد وجد بها أقدم أثار مصرية فى هذا العصر.

وهناك هذه املدينة التى تقع بني األقصر وقنا، قريبة من قوص شمال األقصر وتدعى نقادا، ازدهرت بها حضارات ما قبل األسرات قبل ما )عهد الثالث ثم املتوسط( األسرات قبل ما )عهد الثانى ثم األسرات( قبل ما )عهد األول نقادا بها عن عصر ونسمع األسرات احلديث( والذى بدأ به االستعداد لعهد األسرات ببناء القصور واملعابد. مما يبني بل ويؤكد مرور حضارتنا مبقدمات كثيرة

أهلت إلى وصولنا إلى عصر األسرات.

وقسم عصر ما قبل األسرات كالتالى:

)Eolithic( عصر ما قبل الحجرى القديماستعمل املصرى القدمي احلجر الصوان لصنع أدواته التى اتسمت بالبدائية والبساطة

القديم الحجرى العصر )Paleolithic(

استعمل املصرى القدمي بسيًطا، تهذيًبا املهذب احلجر

ومت تقسيمه إلى العصر احلجرى القدمي واحلجرى املتوسط، القدمي احلجرى األسفل،

القدمي األعلى.

)Mesolithic( العصر الحجرى المتوسطإلى استنادا مرجان« »دى العالم وضعه الذى العصر وهو

منطقة ما وجد مبنطقة »مرمدة أبو غالب« على ساحل الدلتا الغربى

)Neolithic( العصر الحجرى الحديثاستعمل املصرى القدمي احلجر املصقول بعد التهذيب وصنع الفخار واحلصير، يحتمل وقوعه منذ 10000 عام وبه بدأ

عصر ما قبل األسرات.

)Eneolithic( عصر بداية استعمال المعادناستخدم املصرى القدمي املعادن ثم النحاس والذهب والبرونز فاحلديد ويحتمل أن يقع هذا العصر منذ 5000 أو 6000

عام.

ثم يأتى عهد األسرات الذى نسمع عن كثير من ملوكه، وقد قسمت إلي دول وأسرات بتواريخ تقريبية مختلفة سنتعرف عليها٫ كالتالى:

عصر ملوك طينة

1778 ق.م2065 ق.م2280 ق.م2778 ق.م3197 ق.م

رنا صالح تحكي لكم عن

68 69

1570 ق.م

العصر الفارسي الثانيالعصر الفارسي األولالعصر الليبي ثم الصاويعصر الملوك الكهنة الدولة الحديثةالدولة الوسطي عصر االضمحالل األول الدولة القديمة عصر االضمحالل الثاني

األسر 22 : 26 بها األسرة 21األسر 18 : 20األسر 13 : 17األسر 11 : 12األسر 7 : 10األسر 3 : 6اآلسرة النوبية

األسرة 31األسرة 27 األسر 1 : 2من االستقالل عصر يتخللهما ق.م. 343 حتي ق.م. 401

باألسر 28 : 30

شفافية الهويةماذا لو غير العبو فريق األهلي لون زيهم الرياضي الموحد تبعاً للفريق الذي يلعبون ضده؟ ماذا لو غيرت شركة مرسيدس اللوجو المخصص لها تبعاً للدولة التي توزع فيها سياراتها؟ ماذا لو غيرَت لون جلدك تبعاً للمكان الذي تتواجد فيه؟ وماذا لو غيرَت نوع شعرك تبعاً لمرتبة الشخص الذي تتعامل معه؟ ... ستضيع الهوية! فلن يصبح بمقدورنا تشجيع فريق األهلي بسهولة، وسنضيع بين اللوجوهات المختلفة لمرسيدس وقد يتسبب هذا في ضعف المبيعات وحتى إفالس الشركة، وسوف يصبح جلدك بلونين إذا كنت تقف على باب بيتك بينما جزء من جسمك داخل البيت والجزء الآخر في الحديقة، وسيصبح شكل رأسك عجيباً إذا

كنت تتحدث مع مديرك وألقى عليك الساعي التحية في ذات الوقت!

إن لكل شيء هوية تعبر عن أصالته. لفريق الالعبين هوية وللشركات وللمؤسسات هوية وللجماعات هوية، ولألوطان هوية، بل وللعالم هوية، وأنت لك هوية تعبر عن أصالتك، بدأ تكوينها منذ أن خلقك الله تعالى وكرمك من بين خلقه وشّكلك واختارك كرجل أو إمرأة باإلضافة إلى محيطك الثقافى واالجتماعى، كل هذا مجتمعا يحدد هويتك التى أنت عليها األن. ولكن... أنت أعلى من أن تحدد هويتك هذه األشياء فحسب. فأنت مخلوق ذو عقل ورسالة وهدف فى الحياة. فشكلك وحده ال يمثل هويتك وال نستطيع أن نصمم لك التي تتجسد في تصرفاتك وسلوكياتك فى المواقف المتخلفة هى لوجو ليعبر عنك. إن أخالقك ومبادئك التى تعبر عن هويتك باألساس. فمن خالل التصرفات والسلوكيات نقيم األخرين لكى نتخذ القرار بأن نتقرب

منهم أو نبتعد عنهم... ولكن هل يعرف كل منا هويته؟

هنا يكمن التحدي! يزعم الواحد منا أنه خلوق، أو يحدد أكثر فيزعم أنه كريم أو متعاون... إلخ... نحن ال نكذب ولكن المشكلة أننا نعتقد فعاًل بأننا نمتلك هذه الصفات ولكننا في ذات الوقت ال نؤكد مصداقية فقط نتذكر فنحن المصداقية. يمتلك ال منا الكثير نعم... ذلك. المواقف التي كنا فيها كرماء، وعادة ما تكون مع من نختارهم فقط، إرادتنا، فيها، بمحض اخترنا التي األخرى الكثيرة المواقف ونتناسى أن نضع الكرم جانباً، ونتصرف بشكل آخر... فشاب يفتح باب السيارة لخطيبته، ويحمل عنها حقيبة ليست بالثقيلة، وربما يتشاجر من أجل حمايتها، يرفض في ذات الوقت أن يوصل أخته بسيارته إلى مكان ما، ويرى أمه تحمل عدداً من الحقائب دون أن يحرك ساكناً، ومن المؤكد أنه لن يحمل صندوقاً ثقياًل عن زميلته في العمل! ورغم ذلك فهو يؤمن صديقتين العمل زميالت من تختار وفتاة شهم. شاب بأنه ويصدق العوائق تضع وقد الزميالت بقية مساعدة وترفض معهما تتعاون

أمامهن، تعتقد أنها إنسانة متعاونة! الثبات.

لألشخاص تبعاً نغيرها ال نحن بالآخرين! ال بنا ملتصقة األخالق إن فيها، نتواجد التي المختلفة لألماكن تبعاً أو معهم، نتعامل الذين يرتضيها التي والمبادئ األخالق الفصول. أو للمواسم تبعاً أو المواقف ومع كل الثابت في كل لنفسه هي هويته، فالسلوك أحدنا األشخاص هو الدليل الوحيد على مصداقية هذه الهوية. أخالقنا هي الزي الحقيقي أو اللوجو، وهي اللون المميز لكل منا. ومن السهولة الطريق نختار ولكننا األحوال، جميع في بثبات نتصرف أن بمكان

الصعب، ونتلون ونتغير حتى نصبح بال هوية، بال شفافية.

ثبات األخالق ال يتعارض مع المرونة، ففريق األهلي قد يغير موديل التي شيرت ولكن يحتفظ باللون األحمر، ومرسيدس تنوع في أشكال نغير ال ولكننا الشعر نصبغ ونحن باللوجو، تحتفظ ولكن الدعاية نوعه، ونرطب الجلد وال نغير لونه. والخلوق يلون وينوع في األسلوب ولكن أخالقه ثابتة. ففي المرة القادمة وقبل أن نزعم أننا نمتلك خلقاً

أو صفة ما، علينا أوالً أن نعرض سلوكنا على مسطرة الثبات.

هالة الطيب

70

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